


Redemption

by Sophia_Bee



Category: X-Men (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Angst, Assassins & Hitmen, Dark, Dark Charles, Espionage, M/M, Protective Erik, Redemption, Seaside
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-04
Updated: 2015-03-04
Packaged: 2018-03-16 08:06:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 35,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3480683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sophia_Bee/pseuds/Sophia_Bee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the last ten years Charles has been working as an assassin for the government. On a mission in Russia he leaves behind witnesses for the first time, twins who watch as he kills their mother. Returning from the mission Charles ends up in a downward spiral, unable to sleep. Sent on holiday by his handler, Charles ends up in a seaside village in North Wales in an effort to find some peace.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Redemption

**Author's Note:**

> So many thanks to **lapetiteyoyo** for the beta and the wonderful feedback. 
> 
> This fic would not be what it is without my dear **Leafeylocket** who helped me with the setting and the Britishisms, as well as endless headcanons on how all this was going to play out. Oh, and literary devices in French. 
> 
> Thank you to everyone for reading.

The door squeaks open but Charles doesn't look up. He knows who it is. Her heels click smartly as she walks towards him, across the cement floor of the abandoned warehouse. Charles just watches as her black patent leather pumps come into view, striding without urgency until she turns to face him. He sits hunched over with one hand braced on his knee, the other holding his gun.

_Alice._

“How did you think all of this would end?” Alice asks smugly, going to drag one of the dust covered chairs over to him then sitting down in it, not caring about getting her immaculate black suit dirty. She wrinkles up her nose in disgust. “God, this place smells like fish. This whole god damned island smells like fish.”

She crosses her legs then leans forward and rests her elbow on her knee and peers at him. It’s a rare sunny day, bright enough for the sunshine to break through the grime covered windows and it settles on her hair, making it light up like it’s on fire. Her mouth curls into some form of a smile, the one that always leaves Charles feeling unsettled.

“Sod off Alice,” Charles spits out, his voice filled with vitriol. Alice laughs, the sound sharp and echoing. She looks at him, pouting a bit in mock sympathy.

“What did you expect Charles? Retirement? House in the country? Something other than a bullet to the head?"

In all honesty, he’d never thought about how any of this would end. Not until the end crept up on him when he wasn’t looking.

“I don’t know what to expect anymore,” Charles says quietly, almost to himself.

"Oh pet," Alice murmurs richly. "Did you delude yourself into thinking you could end up with the boy? Did you forget who you are? People like you and me, we’re not allowed to love."

Charles flinches at her words, partly because he knows they’re true and partly because he seems to have gone and fallen in love anyway.

Anyone else would tell him not to do it. Anyone else would beg him to put the gun down, set it on the floor, kick it away from him so they would know he’s safe. Not Alice. Alice is content to let whatever happens next take its course. She is neither loyal to his continued life or his inevitable death. This is why Charles knows whatever happens next is entirely up to him. Alice is only here to clean up the mess.

 

* * *

 

 

_\-- 6 months earlier --_

“You’re not sleeping.”

Charles doesn’t answer. He leans against the rail of the bridge and stares into the distance. He brings his cigarette to his lips and takes a long, deep drag, then exhales hard, liking the way the smoke pushes out of his mouth. The day is chilly and the water below the bridge flows by, dull and gray, like the sky above.

“Fuck off, Alice,” Charles finally says, not looking at the woman who is leaning next to him, her posture casual, her shoulders slouched - but Charles has known her long enough to know she’s anything but casual.

“As long as I’ve known you, you’ve always been able to sleep,” she says, ignoring the expletive directed at her. Charles takes another drag of his cigarette, then carelessly drops it to his side, his empty hand coming up to grip his bicep, as if to ward off Alice and her accusations. The cigarette smoke drifts upwards, dissipating into the gray. She’s right. He’s not sleeping. He hasn’t been sleeping since he returned from Russia. He brings the cigarette back up to his lips. His hand trembles a little.

“Send me back out, Alice,” Charles says. His voice sounds smooth, and polite. Charles is being far from polite and his handler knows this. She knows this type of politeness from him is deadly.

“We want to send you out again,” Alice says, her hand going up to push a strand of red hair off her forehead. She squints as the sun briefly breaks through the cloud cover, bright rays shining down onto them for a moment, and Charles can feel its warmth on his face. He has a brief moment, a sliver of memory, of a summer day, lying on the grass, sometime after his father died and before Kurt. The memory drifts by and there would have been a time when Charles tried to grasp for it but now he just lets it go. It slips further away, becoming distant and hazy.

“If you’re not sleeping...” Alice says, her voice trailing off. They both know what she’s saying.

“How is she?” Charles mutters, wanting to change the subject. He flicks the remainder of his cigarette onto the ground and grinds it with his foot then takes his left hand out of his pocket and starts to search for the pack he’d stuffed somewhere before he’d left the Agency safe house, patting around his jacket. Alice glances at his hand then she finally looks him in the face.

“You’re doing it again,” Alice notes dryly.

Charles glances down at the bandage. He knew she would notice. Alice always notices. She’s like that, delving into his mind, rooting out his psyche.

“None of your fucking business, Alice.”

“You’re my business, Charles.” Alice smiles, “My only business.”

Charles might feel ashamed if he could actually feel shame, but these days he feels nothing.

“I need the pain, Alice. You know that.” Charles stares blankly out at the horizon. It’s the truth and it’s a lie, all bundled into one.

“What I know is that you can already take the pain. You’re not doing it for the pain.”

Charles doesn’t say anything. She’s right. In the last ten years he’s been tortured at least a dozen times. He’s never been broken. He can take the pain. This is something different. This is needing to feel and lately he can’t feel anymore. They stand in silence, side by side, neither of them looking at each other. Charles knows Alice heard him earlier. He knows she doesn’t want to talk about her. She never does, and Charles always forces her to.

“I asked how she is.”

“How would I know? You know we’re not watching her anymore.”

“Liar,” Charles says quietly. “How is she?”

Alice sighs and glances over at Charles, her eyes sad. Well, as sad as Alice can be. At least Charles had feelings at one time. He’s not sure if Alice ever did, but she fakes them well.

“All doing this does is torture you. Why do you always want to know about what you left behind?”

Charles can’t answer this. He’s not even sure himself. He’d done everything under his power to keep her safe for so many years. The marks on his skin are the price he’s paid to leave her unmarked. The pain he’s endured is the burden he’s carried to keep her safe. He just wants to know how she is. She’s all he has left, and he doesn’t really have her anymore.

“How is she?” Charles asks again with a growl, refusing to back down. They do this every time, and every time Alice capitulates and gives him the update he asks for. It’s no different this time. His handler glances over him and gives him a long look, the edges of her mouth curling upwards, although it’s not what Charles would ever call a smile.

“Sad,” Alice finally says, sounding resigned, and Charles wonders if Alice even knows what it feels like to be sad. Charles knows, although sadness has started to feel like a long-lost memory since Russia, something that happened to someone else in a different lifetime. “She visits your grave once a week. At least it’s down from daily. She cries at night.”

Charles feels something inside him clench tightly. It’s a foreign, surprising feeling. Raven. The sister he left behind when he finally went into deep cover five years ago. The agency had arranged for him to be killed in a car accident, wiping him from the face of the earth, leaving Raven with just a gravesite to visit. It’s not like anyone would miss Charles Xavier anyway. He was already deep in the espionage world at that point with almost no personal ties. Just that one and it had to be cut.

Charles doesn’t ask anything else about Raven. He never does. Alice never tells him more. He doesn’t know where she’s living, if she’s dating someone, or has found love. He won’t allow himself to wonder if she might have kids now, a family of her own. It’s too much. He’s just waiting for the day that Alice tells him she’s finally moved on and let him go. She never does.

“It’s the kids, isn’t it?” Alice asks.

The children. Charles can see them, standing in the doorway, the girl wearing a long white nightgown, the boy in blue and white striped pajamas. They’re watching as he holds his gun level with the dark haired woman’s ear. She’s on her knees, the bed mattress sagging beneath her. She’s crying, begging in Russian.

_Pietro. Wanda. Please spare them._

The girl is crying too. She has tears streaming down her face. The boy is just watching him, his eyes pale in the moonlight. Charles wishes again that they had stayed in bed. Wishes he’d been able to get in and out quickly, leave the woman in bed with her blood turning the pillow bright red, her overstuffed husband slumped on the toilet where Charles had surprised him earlier, the wall behind him slick with blood and brains and bit of skull. He wishes the children weren’t there at all.

Now he’s going to have to kill them.

It’s not like he hasn’t killed children before. It’s not his favorite part of the job, but a necessary evil from time to time. They haven’t done anything except happen to be born into a family that Charles is targeting. Still, they’re witnesses and witnesses must be dealt with. And it’s not like some of his colleagues who will actually take assignments where children are the target. Charles has some standards, although it feels like the ones he manages to hang onto sink lower and lower with every passing year.

Charles pulls the trigger, the gun fires with a soft thwak, and the dark haired woman is no longer begging. There’s a gurgling sound from the back of her throat and she falls back towards her pillow, her eyes wide and glassy. It’s a moment Charles has seen hundreds of times - that millisecond between life and death. By the time her head hits the pillow, her life is gone.

The next thing Charles notices is the silence. He looks over at the children, expecting to see them sobbing. Instead they look at him. The girl is no longer crying. The boy’s face is dry. Their hands are clasped together. They look to be about ten years old. Twins. Charles remembers being ten, remembers the way Raven’s hand felt in his, the way she trembled standing next to him. Charles lifts his gun. He angles it toward the girl, about to take a shot that will land in between her eyes. He holds it for a long moment, and the room is strangely quiet, moonlight streaming between the blinds that cover the windows, and as much as he knows he should, he cannot pull the trigger. Charles lowers the gun. It feels heavy in his hand. He turns and walks out of the room, leaving the children standing there, staring at their dead mother whose blood is slowly staining her bed crimson. For the first time in ten years he leaves witnesses.

“What happened to them?” Charles asks, half hopeful that the Agency cleaned up his blunder.

“We’re watching them. They don’t remember much of that night. We have ways to keep it that way long-term.”

Drugs. Brain resection. Alice and her ways make Charles shiver a bit.

“They’re alive?” Charles asks, surprised, as he glances over at Alice’s profile. Her mouth grows almost imperceptibly thinner.

“The killing was too high profile.” Alice’s voice is tight. Charles knows she’s not happy. “A neighbor let the press know the two kids were unhurt. We couldn’t move fast enough to eliminate them.”

“Fuck,” Charles says, rubbing the bridge of his nose with his fingers.

“And you’re not sleeping,” Alice observes. She’s right. He left witnesses. He’s not sleeping. The kids are alive. It’s all pretty much fucked up.

“It’s the bed,” Charles says, his voice dismissive. “I can’t get comfortable.”

He’s lying. Most nights he lies on the floor anyway, staring up at the water-stained ceiling of the run-down flat the Agency calls a safe house, watching the shadows run across the ceiling until they look like strange versions of monsters from his past. He would close his eyes and shut them out, but every time he does, he sees the kids. Staring at him. Silent. Watching him kill their mother.

“We can’t send you out again.” Alice sighs, and she leans a little into him. It’s a strange moment, because Alice never really touches him. She barely will even look at him on a regular basis. Now she’s actually allowing some of her weight to sag lightly onto Charles’ shoulder. If it was anyone else, it would be an unremarkable moment. It’s Alice and it’s strangely intimate. Charles tries hard not to flinch at her slight warmth.

“You have to,” Charles growls. He can’t stay in London. The only way to banish the ghosts is to go out again, to fill his head with a mission. Here he can feel the insanity creeping up on him, leaking into his brain, and if can’t get out of this town, it’s only a matter of time before it gets its hooks into his soul.

“You need a holiday,” Alice states, her tone matter of fact. Charles knows Alice is far from matter of fact. She’s not going to budge. She doesn’t understand the unease that grips him. It curls in his stomach and makes him feel like someone is watching him all of the time. The only way to end it is to replace it with the thrum of tension an active assignment brings.

“Fuck going on holiday,” Charles growls and his hand chooses that particular moment to throb just a bit more than it has been since he plunged the knife into the soft flesh between his thumb and forefinger. His body responded to the pain; heart beating faster, that mild wave of nausea that always overtakes him when someone takes their first cut or their first hit, the faint sheen of sweat that breaks out across his forehead. Still, no feeling. Nothing. It’s as if Charles has passed into some other dimension where there is only numbness. No pain is good for someone in his job. At the same time, no pain means nothing else. Ever since Russia he’s become a vacant spot in the universe, and it’s only a matter of time before he tips over the edge and becomes a black hole, sucking up everything living around him. Charles knows this. So does Alice. That’s why she’s telling him to take a holiday.

“Not a choice, Xavier.”

She’s serious. She only uses his last name when she’s serious. Normally she purrs ‘Charles’, dropping the ‘l’ because of her prim British accent, rolling it warmly off her tongue as if they’re in bed together. If she’s using his last name and it’s without any hint of seduction or manipulation, it’s serious.

“Only if I get the file,” Charles says, staring as a barge floats under the bridge. It’s stacked high with cargo containers, bound for the shipyard where they’ll be loaded onto tractor trailers and billions of cheaply made goods will scatter across the country. Charles absently watches it float down the river, pulled by a tug boat.

Alice knows what he’s asking. She’s known he would ask from the moment she walked up to him on the bridge, her hands shoved in her pockets, her hood pulled over her head, leaving her face in the shadows. Charles has never left witnesses.

“We’re watching them,” Alice repeats. “They’re not your worry.”

Charles huffs out a laugh. For once Alice has him wrong. She thinks he wants to kill them, to finish the job. He doesn’t want to file so he can wipe those children off the earth. He’s not even sure if he can articulate why he wants it, but it’s not so he can add their names to his kill tally. He’s not even glad to know their names. Wanda, her face wet with tears, her nose red and running. Pietro, the boy who just stared at him.

“I want it,” Charles says, his voice tight. He’s one of their best operatives. He’s put bullets in the heads of oil magnates, dignitaries, even heads of state. He’s been water boarded, shocked, beaten. All for the Agency. Now he can’t sleep, and he wants the file. He’s never killed someone in front of their kids before. He always kills the children first. And he’s never left witnesses. He wants the file. He needs it.

“You’re seeing the analyst?” Alice asks as she studies his face, watching his reaction to her words.

Charles tries not to sneer. Hank McCoy. Well-meaning. Sympathetic. Charles plays him like a fiddle. He’s always looking through Charles, never at him, frowning a bit as Charles talks, writing notes on a pad of paper. He asks about the children. He never asks if Charles is sleeping. He didn’t notice the bandage on his left hand. Alice did.

“Of course.”

Alice looks at him through narrowed eyes, still carefully studying Charles, who is keeping his face neutral. He’s practiced at it. His face is how he stays alive. One wrong look and his cover is blown. Yet Alice can read him like a book. She knows he’s coasting through the sessions with McCoy.

“The file, Alice,” Charles says, pulling out another cigarette. “It’s all I want.”

“And you’ll get some rest?”

Charles isn’t sure what rest is. He hasn’t rested in the last ten years.

It all started his third year teaching at Oxford. There was a study being done in the behavioral sciences department. It was entirely innocent. He’d volunteered to participate. All it turned out to be was Charles in a room teaching someone in another room. He couldn’t see the other person, but every time the other person got a wrong answer, he pushed a button and the button administered a shock. Each time the other person got another wrong answer, Charles would increase the voltage of the shock. They stopped him at 450 volts.

Alice had shown up at his door the next day. It seems he’d come to the attention of some important people that she called the Agency. She told him they liked the way he thought, that he had the perfect element of ruthlessness. Someone like him didn't come around that often and they wanted him to work for them. No one else had taken the experiment to 450 volts. Charles had blinked and silently thanked Kurt and all the beatings that had slowly taught Charles how to administer pain without caring. He had one of the best teachers out there.

That was the end of Charles’ career as an Oxford professor and the beginning of something altogether different.

There was an adjustment period. It hadn’t taken long for Charles to figure out that they wanted him to kill people. It had taken a bit longer for him not to throw up after every assassination. Alice had given him pills to take the edge off and Charles would be sitting on the stained bedspread of a dingy hotel room in some country, hands trembling as he tried to shake out another pill, wishing they would take the edge off just a bit more. The first year was hard but Alice told him he was doing very well and eventually the feelings would subside. She was right and Charles would discover that Alice was always right. She would discover that in spite of this, Charles doesn’t always listen.

He needs the file. He needs to understand why after all these years something changed and he couldn’t kill those children. What is it about them that made things different.

“I want it, Alice. If you want to bench me, bench me. I won’t fight. As long as I get what I want,” Charles growls, turning his head to give her a pointed look. Alice looks at him for a long moment then her mouth curls up at the edges in a grin that almost resembles a clown, as if Alice doesn’t really know how to offer a real smile. This is as real as she gets. She takes her hand out of her pocket and extends it towards him, her hand clenched into a fist. Still smiling she turns her hand so her palm is facing upwards then uncurls her fingers. In her palm is a USB drive.

“It’s yours,” Alice says smoothly, still with that unnerving grin. “I don’t know what you expect to find, though.”

Charles closes his hand around the USB drive. It feels strangely small in his hand yet it contains everything. He closes his fingers into a fist, gripping it tightly.

“Thank you, Alice,” Charles says and he watches as she blinks and her eyes briefly flicker in shock before they return to their usual state of looking mildly disengaged. Thank you isn’t something they say to each other, yet Charles actually feels gratitude. It’s a strange thing to actually feel thankful when everything is so empty right now.

“Just be careful,” Alice says, shoving her hands back in her pockets. “This kind of thing can lead you places you don’t expect.”

There’s something in the way she tells him this that makes Charles think Alice speaks from experience. He blinks in surprise. It's an unsettling moment of honesty.

“I’ll be careful,” Charles says.

They part ways, Charles walking one way, Alice the other. This is how they meet. Two people leaning on the railing of a bridge. This is how they say goodbye. Two people walking away from each other. Yet Alice is the one person who has been consistent in Charles’ life. She’s the one person who cares the most about him, which is strange because Charles suspects that Alice has little ability to properly care for anyone. He’s still gripping the USB drive as he strides down the sidewalk, heading towards the safe house. He’ll take a look at the file when he gets back to his computer. Then he’ll decide where he’ll go from there.

He doesn’t sleep that night either. Having the file hasn’t magically brought Charles the ability to let his eyes drift shut and finally fall into the darkness that his body craves. He does what he does every night. He lies on the cold hard floor, staring up at the ceiling, watching the shadows drift by, scared to close his eyes.

Charles hasn’t been scared like this in a very long time. Not since he was ten years old and Kurt had managed to beat him within an inch of his life, and the only thing he could think was that if he went to the hospital, Raven would be in danger. From time to time he will feel the unfamiliar fingers of fear snaking up his spine, leaving an uncharacteristic shiver in his muscles. Then there’s that sense of danger that comes on those rare occasions when a mission goes wrong or he knows he’s gotten himself in too deep. This feeling doesn’t come that often because Charles is good at what he does, dispensing with his missions with a terrifying efficiency that Alice sometimes remarks on. But scared is different to all of that. Scared is those children standing in the doorway, watching him. Scared is the Charles cowering in a corner, his body blocking Kurt from getting to Raven.

He thinks about the children. Wanda. Pietro.

If they had cried maybe he would have been able to pull the trigger and kill them. It was the silence that caused him to pause, the way they had stared at him. No tears, no begging, no screams of “mama”. They stared at him the same way Charles would stare at Kurt.

By 3am Charles has grown tired of lying on the floor and staring at the ceiling. He pushes himself up and grabs a sweatshirt, shrugging it on and wrapping it around his shoulders to ward off the chill of early morning. He goes over to his laptop and, ignoring the way his hands tremble, opens it, eyes blinking in the glare from the screen. He picks up the USB drive and plugs it into the computer. A few clicks later he’s staring at the file. Wanda and Pietro stare back at him with their pale blue eyes.

It’s all there. Pictures clearly taken after the shooting, two children staring into the camera with haunted faces. There is a small streak of blood down the girl’s face. The boy’s hair is sticking up every which way, as if he’d just stumbled out of bed.

Charles delves further into the file, clicking through folders, opening documents and scanning them.

They are ten years old.

Ten was how old he was when Kurt came to live with them. Ten was the year the beatings started. After all these years, is that what this is about?

Kurt was especially bad when Sharon was passed out drunk, which was almost every other night. Charles would cower against the wall as Kurt’s fists flew at him, waiting for the inevitable kick to his ribs, praying that this would be enough to keep Raven safe. Raven, who was cowering in her room with her pillow over her head to block out the screams. Ten was when Charles started to understand how much pain he could take - would take - from the man he was forced to call father. Fifteen was when he started to hit back. In between he planned. Planned all the ways he would get his revenge. Twenty five was when he stood over Kurt’s body and unscrewed the silencer from the barrel of his gun. It had been his one request. Sharon was long-gone, her body growing bloated and yellow as her liver ceased to work. No one would miss Kurt Marko. In the end, Raven was surprisingly sad, dabbing away tears with a handkerchief as they stood over Kurt’s grave. She looked at Charles and told him Kurt was the only father she had ever known. Charles didn’t even know what it meant to have a father. He hadn’t since his died. The authorities never found Kurt’s killer. Charles managed to remain passive as he and Raven sat in the police station, the DCI telling them it appeared to be a professional hit. Only after they walked out of the station did Charles allow himself a small bit of a smile over the fact that his work had been described as professional.

Charles scans over the pictures. The ones taken before the assassination. The woman at the park, playing with her children, a smile on her face, the wind whipping her hair around. He says her name out loud. Magda. He’s never needed his victims to be nameless. He doesn’t need it now.

_Magda._

She is German. Charles didn’t know this. Her Russian was flawless as she begged for the lives of her children. He remembers that much. Not a trace of a German accent. She’d been married to the target for eleven years. There are pictures of their wedding, Magda smiling, her dark hair piled up on her head, her belly swollen, one hand resting on it. She looks happy in the pictures, smiling at the camera, her other hand in the meaty grip of her groom, Nikolai Usmanov, a man who would grow so powerful in the next decade that he would become a threat to international governments. His power would invite an assassin into his bedroom in the dead of night, leaving him and his wife dead.

He clicks through the medical records. The autopsy report. Male, caucasian, dead from single gunshot wound to the head. Appears to be a professional hit. Female, caucasian, dead from single gunshot wound to the head. Appears to be professional hit. There are pictures, Magda and Nikolai staring upwards, their bodies split down the middle. Samples in jars. Tissue. Hair. No evidence found. Of course. There was no scratching. Charles always wears long sleeves, gloves, leaving no skin exposed.

The children. They are normal children. Blood work shows nothing out of the ordinary. Well-fed. Healthy. Happy. At least they were. Then Charles stops and peers closer at the screen.

DNA.

DNA is standard these days. All parties have samples taken. It’s easy to take DNA from the bodies. The children were swabbed, dry cotton swabs swept along the inside of their mouths. The tissue was evaluated, tests run, then all the entries were placed into the database and it spilled out results. These results are what stop Charles in his tracks.

The children. They are not Usamov’s.

As a rule Charles does not care about his assignments. He cannot think about who they are, why they do what they do, if they love or laugh or cry from loss. He must be able to kill them and if they are more than a target, he will become compromised. He’s already treading on thin ice, staring at the computer screen, wondering if Nikolai Usamov knew when he and Magda smiled at the camera that the babies his new wife carried were not his. Or did he marry her because she told him he was going to be a father? Was Magda like Sharon, wanting a father for her children no matter what the expense? And does any of it matter?

The tests show a match. The children’s father is in the database.

 

* * *

 

"I've worked with people like you.”

Charles' fingers itch for a cigarette. He picks up a pen off Dr. McCoy’s desk and rolls it between his fingers, liking the feel of the cool metal.

“You think this is a joke, a hoop to jump through.”

That feeling of unease that’s been with him since he returned from Russia magnifies, crawling slowly up his spine. Charles ignores McCoy, staring out the window of the office that’s located in a high rise in the middle of the city. It’s another cloudy London day. More of the same.

“You think I’m a fool.”

Charles blinks. McCoy is wrong. He thinks nothing of him. He’s just someone he has to see a few times a week. Charles doesn’t want to be here. He wants a smoke. A drink. A fuck. He wants to find a dark alley and plunge his cock into the ass of some total stranger who stinks of cigarettes and whiskey. Anything but sitting in the nicely decorated office of Dr. Hank McCoy.

“You think I don’t know you’re not sleeping.”

Alice told him.

More than one drink. Two. Three. Enough to finally pass out and pretend he’s sleeping. Enough to get this jackass out of his head. Charles stops staring out the window and looks at McCoy with a dispassionate gaze.

“I don’t give a fuck if you know that I’m not sleeping,” Charles says flatly, then he thinks he’s going to kill Alice the next time he sees her. She probably knows this and will steer clear of him for a while. She didn’t tell McCoy out of concern. She told him because she’s ever the puppet master pulling the strings, pushing Charles towards the end result she wants using any means possible, including the good Dr. McCoy.

“You have the file,” McCoy says.

“So what?” Charles snaps.

“What do you hope to gain? Why do you want to know about the people you killed? Or about the children you left behind?”

Charles just stares at Dr. McCoy, unable to answer. He’s not even sure himself what he hopes to gain.

“What were their names?”

Wanda. Pietro. Looking at him with those eyes as he holds a gun to their mother's head, hands locked together.

“I can’t remember.” Charles lies, still fiddling with the pen in his hand. McCoy makes a small sound. He knows Charles is lying. Charles looks away again, stares at the beige wall that has five different diplomas displayed, moves his gaze to the picture on McCoy’s desk. A woman, smiling out at him, holding a baby.

“It’s about you and Raven.”

Charles’ gaze snaps back to McCoy who is looking at him through narrowed eyes, as if he knows he’s hit the part of Charles that can still actually hurt.

_Kurt’s fist crashes into Charles jaw and Charles’ head flies to one side with the force of the blow. He thinks this time Kurt may have finally broken something, and what will they tell the doctors and nurses in the emergency room this time. The metallic taste of blood fills his mouth. Behind him he hears Raven scream. Charles brings a hand to his jaw, rubs it, and he knows it should hurt. He feels nothing. He turns his eyes back to Kurt, looks at him with a cool appraisal. Kurt pulls his arm back again. His mouth is screaming something Charles doesn’t understand, spittle flying from lips pulled back to reveal his teeth. All Charles knows is that Raven is not being hit. Raven isn’t tasting blood. Raven is safe. Charles doesn’t even close his eyes to prepare himself for the second blow._

“Those children. Wanda. Pietro,” McCoy says, emphasizing their names, and Charles knows this is more psychobabble meant to push him to connect to the victims. Use their names. Make them real. “They reminded you of yourself. Of Raven. They reminded you of what you went through. You had no parents. You were left behind. Left in a hell you had to survive. A hell that made you who you are.”

Charles clenches and unclenches his fist. Alice again. This is all her doing. He’s never once told McCoy about Raven. The only person who knows is Alice, and it seems Alice has decided to use her knowledge to push Charles.

“You saved her, Charles. And you saved them. But you never saved yourself. You did just the opposite. You sacrificed yourself over and over. And you’re doing it again.”

Charles feels cold, his skin prickling at McCoy’s words. He wants to wreck something, wants to take his gun and fire bullets into each of the fucking pretentious diplomas on the wall, wants to climb over the desk and put the gun to McCoy’s temple and hold it there until the good doctor repents, tells him it’s a bunch of psycho-speak and means nothing. McCoy leans back in his chair and watches Charles with careful eyes that barely mask the fear behind them. He should be afraid.

“Everyone else deserves to live. Everyone except you.”

“Fuck you, McCoy,” Charles finally growls, standing up and throwing the pen back on the desk. He uncoils himself from the leather chair so quickly that the chair rocks, almost tipping over backwards. Dr. McCoy watches him, his face blank except for a small curl at the corner of his mouth, happy to have hit a nerve.

_I’ve worked with people like you._

Charles finds someone to fuck that night. There are no shortage of candidates who watch him with lusting eyes. He finds the one he wants, he ends up fucking him in the back seat of the stranger's car, the other man’s pants around his ankles, his face shoved into the fake leather upholstery of the back seat that has a strange odor of pine tree car deodorizer and sour milk. Charles cock is hard and leaking even before he unzips his trousers and pounds into the stranger, who as Charles hoped, smells like cigarettes, whiskey and sweat. When he’s done, the man rolls over and asks if Charles will suck him off now. Charles tells him to fuck off. There is nothing reciprocal about the situation. The man calls him an arsehole. Charles thinks he doesn’t even come close to the truth of who Charles is. He thinks about what Kurt would say.

_Despicable. Degenerate. Empty. Nothing._

He closes his eyes that night. He’s drunk and fucked out, fucked up and maybe he can finally get the sleep that’s been eluding him. Instead he sees the children, just as they were the night he killed their parents. They stand staring at him, then suddenly he’s looking at Raven and his younger self. The boy version of Charles looks at him, his eyes filled with accusation, then he slowly lifts up the pajama top he's wearing and Charles sees the cuts across his torso, the round burns from the cigarettes that Kurt would stab into his skin for reasons Charles can barely remember anymore.

_You saved her. You never saved me._

Charles sobs as he stares at his childhood self. He gasps as his eyes fly open, and Charles stares up at the ceiling, his eyes tracing the now familiar water stain. His whole body is trembling.

Fuck this. He thought McCoy was a hack but it seems he’s better at his job than Charles expected. He never goes back to see Dr. McCoy. He can’t get Kurt out of his head, can’t stop seeing him, and behind him, lurking in the background, is his father. His real father.

Charles doesn’t have many memories of his father, but the ones he does burn hazy and bright, technicolor dreams of what might have been. They’re images from before everything grew dark, and he wonders how his life would be different if his father had lived. A holiday by the sea. Sharon laughing by the fireplace. Charles on his father’s lap, holding onto a stuffed bear. The memory is liquid, like the whole thing is underwater, but it’s the clearest thing Charles has from a happier time.

Kurt had burned that bear years later. Because Charles hadn’t cleared the dishes fast enough.

In the end he listens to Alice. It’s not like he has much choice. He decides to take the holiday just as she told him to, to seek out this fabled rest and relaxation, and maybe he can find a way to finally sleep again. He’s going back to that cabin, set atop rolling green hills, looking out over the vastness of the sea, where the night is pitch black and the winds wail across the land. Back to the one happy memory he has. It’s in North Wales. Alice smiles when he tells her he’s going. Tells him she’s happy he listened to her. What he doesn’t tell Alice is that he’s also going to the Isle of Anglesey.

Charles is going in search of forgiveness.

Everyone seems to think he wants to see the children. They’re wrong. He can’t see Wanda and Pietro, and even if he wanted to, he has no idea where to find them. Alice might hand him the file, knowing full-well what she’s starting, but she will never tell him where they are keeping the children. Charles is okay with this. Seeing them will change nothing. He can’t stand to look into their faces, see the children he was able to spare when he had never been able to spare himself. All those years putting himself in the the direct path of Kurt and his rage. All those years of having everything slowly taken from him, bit by bit, until he became a shell that houses only violence and brutality. He had spared Raven. He spared Wanda and Pietro. But Charles; the boy who spent most of his time trying to stay alive, was never given a chance. In the end the only person who could save him was himself, and he didn’t even try.

There is only one way he can find forgiveness.

He’s going to Anglesey because he’s there. The man in the file. The man who may not even know he’s a father. Charles has read the files over and over. Usmanov is listed as the father on the birth certificate. Magda moved from Berlin to Moscow soon after she started seeing Usmanov, but there was another man. Erik Lehnsherr. A student from the University who she had been seeing just before she started up with Usmanov. The man whose DNA Wanda and Pietro share. A man who it turns out is in North Wales.

If he were still visiting McCoy, he thinks the good doctor would prod him. Why does he want to see this man? What will it accomplish? He’s not even a father to the children who are haunting Charles. Still, if Charles can see that someone, someday might be able to give those children some kindness, if he can pretend that there might be love and laughter waiting for them, maybe some of this can make sense. If this Lehnsherr man can offer some hope, maybe Charles can finally let go of them and maybe then he can finally sleep.

Dr. McCoy would tell him not to stop. He would tell him to drive on by, take a different route, and to stay away from Anglesey. Dr. McCoy can fuck off.

The drive is long, winding up and down narrow roads. Charles hates being in the car, hates the time it gives him alone with only his thoughts. He makes his way along the coast, towards Cemaes, the sea stretching out to his left. The car window is down and the wind blows through, smelling of salt and when Charles licks his lips he can taste it. It’s one of those rare sunny days, the kind that make families think a drive sounds good and they pack themselves into cars with picnic lunches, find hidden beaches, build sandcastles and laugh together. Sunshine just reminds Charles of what he’ll never have. He squints at the road, watching the road signs that are in both Welsh and English flash by, getting closer and closer to his destination.

By the time Charles pulls his car into Cemaes he’s been driving for hours and his muscles are stiff and sore. He stumbles a bit when he steps out of the car, his legs protesting being suddenly forced back into movement. Charles walks down the mostly deserted street, and finally stops at a shop with a large black and white sign outside proclaiming its name as The Coffee Pot. Charles pushes the door open and a woman glances up at him briefly, then looks back down at the book she’s reading. Her hair is the color of dark straw, her mouth pinched, and the brief glance she gives him is suspicious. Charles clears his throat.

“Erik Lehnsherr,” Charles says, his voice sounding almost tinny in the small shop. She looks up from her book at the sound of his voice.

“The German," the woman says bluntly, as if everyone should know that’s who he’s looking after. Charles shrugs. Lehnsherr’s name is indeed German. Erik with a k. Lehnsherr, the r sound at the end drawn out. But more simply to the people of Cemaes, The German. The outsider. Charles thinks to himself that this must be a hard place to live.

“The German, I guess,” Charles repeats. “Where can I find him?”

“The Black Lion. Down the street. But he’s probably closing now in a minute," the woman says in a lilting Welsh accent.

Charles buys a coffee but despite his decision to actually purchase something, the woman remains as immovable as she was when he first approached her. He turns to say goodbye as he leaves but she’s already returned to whatever novel she’s engrossed in, and Charles' words fall on deaf ears. Charles walks down the street, the wind off the Irish sea blowing so hard it whips his hair into his eyes and he reaches up to brush it out. At the end of the street is another non-descript building, the same white washed walls that it seems all the houses and businesses here have. The sign hanging outside the door says The Black Lion. This is what he’s come for. This is where it all ends. Charles pushes at the wood door and it swings inward.

The pub is mostly empty, with a few grizzled fishermen sitting hunched over at the wooden counter. They turn to look at him when he comes in then turn back to their pints, ignoring the stranger who has suddenly come into their midst. Charles walks over to the bar and slides onto one of the stools. There is no one behind the bar, and the high ceilinged room echoes. He looks out one of the paned windows with it’s warped glass and he can see the docks lined with weathered fishing boats, bobbing as the waves roll in and out. Charles taps his fingers on the lacquered wood bar that feels slightly sticky from years of beer and other things being spilled on it. The man closest to him lifts his pint glass and takes a long drink. The whole place is eerily quiet. Charles wonders where The German is, when the silence is broken by the sharp sound of a door opening and shutting and moments later a man appears behind the counter carrying a large box that he sets down on the bar. He looks over at Charles who is staring back at him.

Erik Lehnsherr.

“I’m closing,” the man grunts. Charles can’t speak. He can only stare, because the eyes that are looking at him, pale blue, surrounded by dark lashes, he’s seen them before. They’re the same eyes that watched him that night, watched as he killed that woman with the dark hair. The eyes he could not look away from.

“Um,” Charles stutters, still staring. The man is tall, lithe, with broad shoulders. Is this what the boy will look like when he grows up? Will he be the spitting image of his father, with dark hair and a chiseled jaw, a set mouth that looks as if it doesn’t turn up into a smile easily. Erik Lehnsherr might be an outsider but from what Charles can tell, his stoic demeanor fits right in with the people around him.

“A pint?” Lehnsherr asks, sounding annoyed at the sudden muteness Charles seems to have been stricken with. Charles chides himself internally. He has taken the lives of dignitaries yet he finds himself dumbstruck as he faces the only connection he has to the event that upturned his life.

Charles nods.

“Brains bitter alright?” Erik asks, grabbing a pint glass from under the bar. He’s filling it before Charles can even nod, then he throws down a beer mat and sets the pint on it with a heavy thud. Charles wraps his fingers around the cool glass, feeling the condensation on his skin. He raises the glass to his lips and takes a long drink. The beer is sharp and bitter, cool on his throat. He sets the glass back down, his eyes never leaving the man behind the counter.

Lehnsherr is busying himself with his till, counting bills and coins. Outside the sun is dipping towards the horizon and the light is growing dimmer and dimmer. One by one the men who were already occupying seats in the pub get up and bid their farewell. Lehnsherr calls each one by name, telling them he’ll see them soon, reminding one of a dart tournament that Saturday. Finally the last man leaves and it’s only Charles sitting on the stool, an empty pint glass in front of him.

It occurs to Charles that Lehnsherr told him he was closing when he first walked in and that was over an hour ago. At some point, Lehnsherr had walked over and turned the sign hanging in the door from open to closed, but he never once made any move to ask Charles to leave. Finally Charles pulls out his wallet and starts to pull out a fiver. The other man glances up at him.

“Till’s closed,” Lehnsherr grunts. Charles stares at him. Lehnsherr comes over to stand in front of Charles then picks up the pint glass. “You look like you could use another.”

Does he? Charles wonders. Has his despair leaked through until a stranger can see it bleeding out around him? Before Charles can say ‘yes’ to the offer of a second pint, Lehnsherr is putting it down in front of him. Charles reaches out and their fingers brush, the touch lasting for less than a millisecond. Charles flinches.

Charles is guarded. He doesn’t touch people. He doesn’t touch Alice. He doesn't touch anyone unless it’s a stranger he’s fucking. An accidental brushing of fingers is something he never does. So when Lehnsherr’s long, narrow fingers brush against Charles’, Charles jerks in surprise and pulls his hand away quickly. The other man stills for a moment and looks at him with narrowed eyes for what feels like an eternity but might only be mere seconds. Charles wants to turn away from that gaze, but he can’t.

“You’re not sleeping,” Lehnsherr murmurs. Charles blinks at the unexpected observation from a stranger. He stares, eyes wide and for the first time in years Charles feels them start to well up with tears.

“No,” Charles whispers, suddenly wanting to be anywhere but here with this man. He didn't want to talk to him. He had just wanted to come and see him, to see the only other person in the world who has a connection to those children. Now he sits trembling as if this stranger can see right through him. If Erik Lehnsherr can see that he’s not sleeping, what else can he see?

“I’m Erik,” the other man says suddenly, looking a little sheepish, as if it might be a bit straightforward to tell a stranger he’s not sleeping when you haven’t even introduced yourself.

“Charles,” Charles responds, disconcerted to hear the way his voice is wavering.

“I’m so sorry,” Erik says, and now Charles can hear the faint German accent that gives him his nickname. “I shouldn’t have said anything. It’s just that you look like you’re hurting.”

He is. Somewhere under all the numbness, Charles is hurting in a way he’s never hurt before. It’s a constant ache that doesn’t leave him, and he’s been empty for so long he hasn’t been able to understand what’s happening until this man told him what he saw. Alice, McCoy. Neither of them could break through, but this man with his eyes that feel like they’re looking directly into the deepest parts of Charles' dark soul, has. Charles swallows.

“Where are you heading?”

“Aberdaron,” Charles says, seeing no harm in telling this man the truth. His eyebrows arch a bit.

“You’re a bit out of the way,” Erik notes, grabbing a rag and continuing the wipe down the bar.

“Came to see someone,” Charles says shortly, taking a long drink of beer.

“And did you find what you were looking for?” Erik asks as he opens the box he’d set on the bar earlier and starts pulling out bottles of liquor. He’s wearing a blue chambray button-up shirt with the sleeves rolled up to reveal his strong forearms and Charles watches, almost mesmerized, as the muscles there flex and bunch with each movement. Suddenly he wants something. Charles wants those fingers back, wants them to brush against his own again, wants to feel that sensation again. He shakes his head.

“...staying the night?” Erik says.

“What?” Charles says, feeling lost and disoriented. He doesn’t usually drift off somewhere in the middle of a conversation.

“I was asking if you’re staying the night. It’s a long way to Aberdaron.”

“Oh.”

He wasn’t planning to stay, but the sun is almost under the horizon and the road towards Aberdaron is narrow and winding. Charles feels a strange weariness grip him, and suddenly he feels tired. More tired than he has since he came back from Russia. Maybe tired enough to finally sleep.

“I have some stew left over from today. And I rent rooms upstairs. You can stay if you like, have some supper, sleep a wink.”

Charles blinks. He should say no. He should stand up and walk away and leave Erik Lehnsherr in the past, just another stranger, a face to add to the collection of faces he’s forgotten over the years. Alice would tell him to walk away. She would tell him he’s an idiot, that nothing good will come of this. He killed the mother of this man’s children after all. Staying will not end well.

“How much for a night?” Charles asks. He hears Alice huff out a laugh in his head and he knows she would roll her eyes and tell him it’s his funeral. Charles tells her to fuck off and get the hell out of his head. As if Alice ever listens, even when she’s just a figment of his imagination.

“It’s off season,” Erik ponders, “I don’t know, £40 .”

If Erik had said £400 Charles would have paid it. He nods and pulls out his wallet, counting out forty. Erik reaches under the counter and sets a key on the bar. It has a number six on it.

“The Black Lion’s luxury suite,” Erik says, with an easy humor that Charles envies. Charles offers him a smile back that feels stretched and doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “I’ll see you for breakfast. It’s just porridge.”

“I like porridge,” Charles says, sounding a little unconvincing. Erik looks at him as if he wants to ask if anyone actually likes porridge, but he says nothing about his range of breakfast options.

“Stairwell at the back,” Eriks says, nodding his head in that direction. “I’ll grab you a bowl of stew.”

After Charles sups up the stew, which is warm and flavorful and not at all disappointing, he grabs the key heads upstairs without saying goodnight to his host, who has disappeared into the back, continuing to clean up from the day. The ‘luxury suite’ turns out to be a nicely decorated room with a small bathroom off to one side. It’s clean, with a nice cotton bedspread on the double bed thats sits to one side, a small table and chair by the window that looks out over the sea, and a coffee maker sitting next to the TV on a low dresser. The room smells a little stale from disuse so Charles goes to the window and throws it open, letting the salty, damp air rush in. The sun is gone now and the clouds have returned. Charles can’t tell if he’s feeling mist from the sea or if the rain has started up again. He takes a deep breath, taking in that smell that is distinct to seaside villages, a mixture of salt and fish and seaweed strewn across the beach. It's a smell he remembers from that trip long ago, and for a brief moment he recalls how it felt to have sand between his toes and the way Sharon’s laughter had been whipped away by the wind.

Charles puts his bag on the bed. He won’t unpack because he’ll be gone in the morning. This is just a temporary stop on his way to somewhere else, and tomorrow Erik Lehnsherr will be a memory. Charles lies down on the floor, stretching his body out, feeling its cold, comforting hardness against his back. He stares up at the ceiling and is relieved that the water stain is gone. It’s a clean, white ceiling, and suddenly the clouds break and the whole room is filled with moonlight, everything cast in various shades of grey. Charles feels the welcome pull of sleep and he fights back the fear that grips him. Maybe this time he won’t see them. He lets his eyes fall shut and is relieved that the children aren’t there. Only darkness. He lets out a sigh, and for the first time in months he sleeps.

 

* * *

 

He means to be gone before the sun rises, but instead Charles wakes to light filling the room that can only be described as the hazy brightness that comes with late afternoon. Charles blinks then he jerks awake, scrambling to his feet and staring at the room around him, his heart pounding wildly. It takes a long moment for him to remember where he is and to realize that he’s not in danger. He takes in some deep breaths and waits for his heart to slow. It’s okay. He’s safe. He unzips the bag that is still on the bed from last night and pulls out a clean set of clothes - jeans, a long-sleeved t-shirt. Outside the window he can hear the cries of seabirds and somewhere in the distance the clanging of a bell. Charles strips off the clothes he’d slept in, removing trousers and shirt, pulling down his boxers, until he’s standing naked in the middle of the room, his skin pricking from the cold, his cock hanging loose and heavy between his legs. Charles reaches upwards with both arms. He drops his arms to his side then brings them up again, stretching his fingers towards the ceiling one more time. Just as he drops his hands to his side Charles hears the doorknob rattle and there’s the sound of keys in the lock. Charles thinks quickly to where he set his gun the night before, calculating how fast he can dash to the small dresser by the bed where it lies, when the door swings open and Erik stands in the doorway.

“Uh,” Erik says, sounding shocked. Charles doesn’t move. He just stands naked, watching with careful eyes as the other man stares at him. Erik’s eyes look downward, avoiding looking at the freckled expanse of skin that Charles is presenting him with. Charles starts to make a move to grab his clothes when Erik does something entirely unexpected. He sweeps his gaze upward, eyes traveling up Charles’ legs to his thickly muscled thighs, lingering on his groin, staring at his cock that’s nestled in curls of dark pubic hair. They continue their path upwards, across his flat belly, his chest, stopping on the long white scars and the small, round white ones, a frown marring that handsome face. Finally Erik ends his journey on Charles’ face, their eyes meeting one another, and Charles is struck again at the pale beauty of those blue eyes. It’s probably all over in under two seconds but it feels like a lifetime, as if Erik is gazing at him for hours, memorizing him, and Charles feels unease start to climb up his spine followed by a tingle in his groin.

It’s not that Charles doesn’t fuck people. He fucks people all of the time. Men in bars, in alleyways, in the back of cars. It’s just that he always fucks for the same reason. He gets that itching feeling, a buildup of tension, and he starts to feel his mind spinning out of control. That’s when he knows the only thing that will bring the relief he craves from these feelings is to lose himself in the feeling that comes with fucking and coming. When he’s done, he walks away, never intending to be a gracious lover. He fucks to meet a need. This is why the way his body is responding as Erik sweeps up it is entirely disconcerting. Charles usually wants to stop the feelings, to replace them with something stronger, even for just a few minutes. He doesn’t ever want one particular person. But as the man in the doorway stares and Charles sees his tongue come out to lick his thin, bitten lips, for the first time in a long time, maybe for the first time ever, Charles wants him and only him.

The realization hits Charles hard, and he normally might try to grab his clothes and at least appear embarrassed, but he can’t move. He subjects himself to Erik’s perusal, and fuck it if his cock isn’t going from flaccid to half-hard as they look at each other.

“I brought fresh towels,” Erik finally manages to stutter and Charles jerks at the sound of his strained voice. “I thought you were out.”

“Just going to shower,” Charles says, not making a move to cover himself.

“Okay. Good. I mean, just in case, I’ll set these here.” Erik crosses over to the bed and sets the small pile of white, fluffy towels he’s holding onto the bedspread. Charles can see his eyes taking in the fact that the bed has obviously not been slept in. That small frown that Charles saw when Erik glanced over his scars returns.

“You slept okay?” Erik asks, and it seems they’re going to have this entire conversation with Charles standing naked in the middle of the room.

“Best in a long time,” Charles says honestly. He sees the frown deepen.

“Okay,” Erik says, shrugging a little. “There’s lunch downstairs when you get cleaned up. Stew.”

“Stew,” Charles repeats. It all sounds good. Stew. Erik. Erik offers him one last smile then turns and leaves the room, pulling the door shut behind him. Charles stands not moving for a moment longer, wondering what just happened, then he looks down at his cock that is working itself to fully hard just from Erik’s attentions. He pads into the bathroom and turns on the shower, enjoying the way the water starts to warm the small room. When it’s warm enough Charles steps under the spray, savoring the way it hits his skin. He slicks his hand with soap then reaches down and takes his now turgid cock in his hand, gripping it, eyes closing with the sensation, and for the first time since he can remember, Charles jerks himself off in the shower.

 

* * *

 

Every morning Charles wakes up and tells himself he’ll leave. He never does. Because Charles is sleeping. It’s not like the dreams are gone. He still sees the children. They still watch him with their cold eyes, but he can sleep, and some nights he doesn’t even dream. For right now, it’s enough. This is why he can’t leave. He’s found the closest thing he can to peace and Charles doesn’t want to let it go.

Then there’s Erik. Erik with his blue eyes and his easy laugh, who banters with the locals who come in for a pint and asks after their families. There is something about him, an element of the same unease that plagues Charles but somehow he rises above it. Erik, with his long fingers that seem to find reasons to brush Charles’. Then again, maybe he’s just one of those people who exist in the world to counterbalance people like Charles, who holds himself carefully, never brushing up against others, broadcasting his need for space. It seems no matter how much he broadcasts, Erik doesn’t stay away. He puts a hand on his shoulder, touches his arm as he walks by, offers him a smile. With every day Charles feels something inside him uncoil bit by bit, and at some point he doesn’t flinch with every touch.

Slowly they inch towards something. It lurks, undefinable but it's always there. It’s in the way Charles starts to be able to return Erik’s smile and it sometimes reaches his eyes. The way Erik looks at him in the morning when he makes his way down from his room above the pub, the t-shirt he’d been wearing to sleep in riding up a bit, rubbing the sleep from his eyes and combing his fingers through his hair in the back where it’s refusing to lie flat. It’s there.

“Do you have any kids?” Charles asks one day, secretly dreading the answer. Erik is leaning on the bar with both elbows, watching Charles as he picks at a plate of fish and chips. There is what feels like a long, meaningful pause, but maybe it’s nothing. Maybe it’s just that Erik is watching Charles break apart the fish with his fingers, popping a piece in his mouth and chewing.

“No,” Erik says, sounding more than a bit distracted. Charles feels something snap inside. No kids. Not that he knows of. He tries hard not to smile, picks up a chip and pops it in his mouth.

It’s a slow Sunday afternoon and Charles has just woken, not even bothering to shower. He knows he looks a bit rumpled as he perches at the bar eating the food Erik had waiting for him when he finally stumbled down the stairs. Erik has taken to leaving a pile of fresh towels outside the door of the room, avoiding the awkwardness of that first day. Charles had grabbed them and set them on the bed that still remained smooth and unwrinkled, Charles still preferring to spend his nights with the hardness of the floor on his back.

The pub is deserted, not even the regulars are there. Erik looks around as Charles picks up another piece of fish.

“Do you want to get out of here?” Erik asks, looking at Charles.

Charles arches an eyebrow in surprise. “Get out of here?” he repeats. “You mean shut down the pub.”

“It is my pub, after all,” Erik says with that same easy smile. “And we seem to be even missing the town drunk today.”

Charles wants to say yes. He has this strange, unfamiliar bubbly feeling in his chest at the prospect of being able to spend the rest of the day with Erik, a far cry from sitting at the bar and having small snatches of conversation while Erik pours pints and brings out food.

“We can take my boat out on the water,” Erik says, frowning a bit as he seems to notice that the same cloud cover is there and the the drizzle is ever-present. “I’ll bring a thermos of tea, some beer.”

“You won’t lose money?” Charles asks, frowning a bit.

Erik shrugs. “Off season. You’re pretty much supporting the Black Lion as it is.”

Erik's tone is light and Charles feels one of those rare genuine smiles stretch across his face. "Okay."

"Okay," Erik repeats. "You'll need something warmer than that shirt. Wait here."

Erik ducks into the back. Charles finishes his plate of food. A few minutes later Erik returns holding a thick, nubby cable knit sweater in a deep blue-grey that looks like the sea on a stormy day. "You can borrow this. You'll probably need to roll up the sleeves."

Charles pulls the sweater over his head, shoving his head through the narrow neck and slipping his arms into the sleeves. Erik is right, they’re too long and the body of the sweater is too long, but it’s soft and warm, and it smells like Erik. When Charles’ head emerges, he finds that Erik is watching him with an unreadable expression on his face, his lips parted as if he’s about to say something, but instead they close and Erik puts out his hand that’s holding a wool hat.

“You’ll need this too,” Erik says. Charles nods and busies himself rolling up the sleeves of the sweater. Finally he takes the hat and pulls it down over his head, covering his ears. He looks at Erik.

“You could pass for a local,” Erik says, laughing lightly. “Except for that posh accent.”

Charles frowns at Erik. Is Erik teasing him? Charles doesn’t know how to respond. He says nothing and Erik transitions from looking mildly amused to slightly uncomfortable.

“Anyway,” Erik almost stammers. “It...it looks good on you. Makes your eyes, ah, more blue.”

_More blue._

“Thanks,” Charles says, and it’s genuine. This is the kind of normal, day to day interaction with another person that he’s lacked for the last ten years. Maybe he's lacked it his whole life. It feels unsettling, like he’s doing all the things he supposed to but no matter what, he’s standing on the outside, watching everything from a distance, forever trapped away from any type of normalcy.

They end up on a small fishing boat Erik says is his. He tells Charles between sips from the thermos that if you live in Cemaes, you have a boat. That the people who live there are strong, stoic types with a deep connection to the sea that lasts generations. Many of them primarily speak Welsh. Their families have lived there for generations. He describes the village and town with great love.

“So why is The German here?” Charles asks, taking the thermos that Erik offers to him in his hands. He takes a drink of the tea that Erik has brewed strong with a squeeze of lemon. Erik shifts his gaze from Charles to look out over the endless waves.

“Things were going badly where I was,” Erik says quietly, his voice tinged with sorrow, or regret. Charles can’t quite put a finger on which one. “I came on holiday ten years ago, got a job working at the pub and stayed on. Eventually I was able to save enough to buy it when the owner decided to retire and here I am.”

Ten years ago. Magda and the twins. Erik escaping to Cemaes. Charles joining the Agency. It’s as if their paths started to merge all those years ago and then suddenly collided with a bullet to the temple of a woman screaming as her children watched.

They sit in silence for a while longer, Erik deftly guiding the boat over the swells of the sea, a wave slashing up over the bow now and then, wetting Charles. Charles sneaks a look over at Erik, studying his profile, taking in the way his brow knits, the strong line of his jaw, his eyelashes that are gathering moisture from the never-ending drizzle.

“Who hurt you, Charles?” Erik asks suddenly, still staring across the smooth waters as he guides the boat. The question is unexpected. Charles shivers despite the thick wool Erik-smelling sweater and the wool hat. He turns to look at Erik who does not glance over, his profile tense as if he knows he’s crossed a line. A question like that might earn you the barrel of Charles’ gun pointed at your face. But Charles has no gun and he’s speeding across the sea, and he doesn’t really want to hurt Erik in spite of his gall.

Charles doesn’t answer. There is no answer, or not one that he wants to tell Erik. Many people have hurt him. Kurt. Alice. The agency who saw the killer in him. But in the end, he’s hurt himself. That’s what Dr. McCoy would say.

“I hear you scream at night,” Erik continues, turning his head and finally looking at Charles. He’s not just glancing over, not making casual eye contact. He’s looking at him, seeing him, and Charles feels his throat constrict. It’s personal. It’s none of his business. It’s not meant for anyone but Charles. “No one screams like that unless they’ve been hurt.”

Suddenly Charles wishes for Dr. McCoy and his bullshit. Sitting in this boat with Erik Lehnsherr, the biological father of the children he couldn’t kill, who is looking at him with undeserved kindness, produces a kind of pain that no one has ever been able to physically inflict on Charles. Not once. He wants to go back to the pub, to the room that’s become his sanctuary and search his bag for the knife and dig into his palm until he feels something else besides this.

“I can’t,” Charles hears himself say, “I just can’t…”

_”You’re nothing. NOTHING. No one will love you. No one will care.” This time it’s the belt. Charles bites his lip so hard that it bleeds but he doesn’t flinch. Because Kurt is right. He’s nothing and if he’s nothing, he won’t hurt._

They continue on in silence, the beer in the cooler Erik brought along remains untouched. Neither man looks at each other. Erik finally says something about a lighthouse further down the coast that Charles might want to visit while on holiday. Is that what this is? A holiday and not some exquisite sort of hell complete with a man who is slowly peeling back parts of Charles' soul he never knew he had. He swallows and clenches his fist, resolved to leave in the morning and never look back. Erik has dug too deep.

“We should go back,” Erik finally says as the light starts to grow dimmer. Charles nods, biting at his lip, his eyes stinging from the salt water. Yes. They should go back. Not just back to the village. Back to Charles and Erik being polite friends, to gracious morning greetings and small talk. But he can’t go back. Not now. They remain in silence, Charles lost in his memories, Erik’s jaw set and his eyes as dark and stormy as the waters around them. When they reach the dock Charles hops out quickly, grabbing a line and helping tie up the boat that is rocking with the force of the increasingly strong wind blowing off the sea.

“It’s going to blow tonight,” Erik remarks, staring out over the water. The sky has been growing increasingly ominous. Charles looks down the dock and sees that some of the fishermen who make their living trawling the Irish sea for an ever slimmer stock are tying down tarps and battening hatches. There’s a sense of heaviness in the air. “You haven’t been here for one of the big storms.”

“No,” Charles says.

“Do you want to come down for a drink? We can watch the storm blow in.”

Erik looks as much in turmoil as the sea that’s starting to form whitecaps. A wave crashes up against the dock, despite the protection from a nearby jetty and sea spray splashes up, wetting both men.

“No,” Charles says sharply and Erik looks hurt. Charles immediately regrets his tone. “I mean, I shouldn’t. I need to pack.”

It’s the first acknowledgement of the price that will be paid for Erik’s prying.

“I have a good bottle of scotch. A chess set,” Erik pushes, sounding sorry and even a little lost. “A fire. I...I owe you.”

Charles blinks. He doesn’t need all night to pack. He barely needs five minutes. Years of missions, having to leave places quickly, near misses, have made him efficient. The wind gusts, another wave crashes and the boats in the harbor roll. That bell in the distance dings, a strange mournful sound.

“Please,” Erik says. He puts out his hand and Charles stares at it, not knowing if Erik wants a handshake, a squeeze, or whether he wants to wrap Charles’ hand in his and hold it tight. Charles doesn’t reach out in return. He just looks at Erik.

“Okay,” Charles says finally, letting out a sigh. He knows he shouldn’t but he wants to take what Erik is offering: a night by the fire, drink that warms your chest, good company. Just this once, Charles thinks to himself. “You’ve been kind to me. Fed me. Let me stay in your room for a pittance and you let me borrow this sweater that now appears to be sopping wet.”

Charles smiles. Erik smiles back. "Okay."

They walk up the hill from the harbor and back towards The Black Lion. Charles feels the wind at his back, almost pushing him forward. He thinks what it might be like to be out on the sea on a night like this. He wants to ask Erik about it, if there are any boats still out, but he doesn’t. Charles feels like they’ve somehow gone past small talk. When they arrive at the pub, Erik opens the door and Charles follows him through it. Instead of climbing the now-familiar stairs to his room, Charles follows Erik around the bar, through the doorway in the back, down a hall and into Erik’s compact and cozy living quarters. They consist of a sitting room, a small kitchenette, a bathroom and through a doorway, a tidy little bedroom. Everything is just like upstairs. Decorated nicely, inviting and clean. Erik tosses the bag he brought on the boat into a corner then turns to the kitchenette and puts the cooler with the beer on the floor. He goes to flick on an electric kettle sitting on the small counter, then turns to find Charles standing in the middle of the sitting room feeling a little lost.

“Let me take that sweater,” Erik says and Charles startles a little then starts pulling the damp wool over his head. Despite the natural protection of the wool, the long-sleeved shirt underneath is damp as well. Charles picks at it.

“I’ll just go upstairs and grab something,” Charles says and Erik looks at him.

“I’ll give you one of mine and wash this,” Erik says quickly, his words tinged with a barely discernable note of desperation. “You don’t have to leave.”

Charles doesn’t argue. He just shrugs his agreement then pulls his shirt up over his head, the cold air of the room hitting his skin, sending goosebumps scattering across it, and he feels his nipples grow tight with the chill. When he’s taken off his shirt, he finds that Erik is staring at him and it reminds him of the first day here, when Erik had accidentally barged in on him entirely naked. Erik has the same look now, his eyes refusing to look away from Charles' bare chest.

“Here,” Charles says, holding the wet shirt out. Erik stares at it for a moment then says ‘oh, yes’ and takes it in his hand. He disappears into his bedroom and Charles hears the sound of a washer being started, then Erik comes back out and hands a folded t-shirt to Charles. Charles unfolds it, noting how soft the fabric is under his fingertips. It’s long-sleeved, worn, navy blue with the logo of a local festival on it that’s mostly faded away. He pulls it over his head and like the sweater, it smells like Erik. Charles wants to pull the fabric to his nose, to inhale the scent of spice and laundry detergent. Instead he thanks Erik politely.

“This is nice,” Charles says, offering a small, tenuous smile. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Erik says, and for the first time since the boat, he smiles back. This warms more than the fire Erik goes to try to start in the fireplace. The kettle dings and Charles, seeing that Erik is occupied with arranging a small pile of wood on the hearth, walks over to the kitchenette and starts opening cabinet doors until he finds the one with the mugs. He looks back over his shoulder and asks Erik where the tea is and Erik tells him in the cabinet to the right of the stove. Charles spies a a familiar Yorkshire Gold box, pulls it down, then starts to make tea. When he finishes and picks up a mug in each hand, he turns to find that Erik is sitting on the couch with a chess set sitting on the small table in front of the couch. He pats the seat next to him.

“Sorry,” Erik says, looking a little sheepish. “Not many places to sit.”

“No,” Charles says, moving towards the couch then settling next to Erik. “Don't be sorry. It’s nice.”

Charles grew up in the opulence of the family home but all it ever meant for him was fear and pain. He’s been in palaces and mansions over the past ten years. But this set of rooms in the back of a pub on the coast of northern Wales, sitting next to this man, with a fire on the hearth and the wind roaring outside. It’s nice. Maybe one of the nicest places he’s ever been.

They play chess and drink tea, and when the tea is gone, Erik pours the scotch. He’s not wrong that it’s a good scotch, rich and mellow, and it doesn't take long for Charles to relax, slumping back onto the back of the couch, glass in his hand. They play one game, then another. Erik bumps against Charles and Charles doesn't flinch away. Erik grins and suggests best of three. The rain starts, pounding on the one window that looks down to the harbor. Charles can no longer hear the far off clanging of the buoy in the distance, the only sounds are the howling wind and the rain. The fire burns low and Charles feels a strange contentment that he's not sure he's ever experienced before. Slowly he starts to let go of all those things he holds inside, letting them unravel in this small room, replacing them with warmth. Charles lets himself lean back into the worn couch, his eyes droop, and the next to the last thought he has is that maybe this is what home feels like for people who have one. Warm, cozy, locked away from the world.

His last thought before he drifts off to sleep is that it's too bad he has to leave tomorrow.

Charles does not escape his dreams that night.

He is back in that bedroom. Magda is on the bed, kneeling, tears streaming down her face. She’s begging him in Russian. Please. Spare them. Spare her children.

“Yes,” says the girl, walking over to Charles. His hand starts to tremble. The gun shakes.

“Get away!” Charles hisses.

“Spare us,” the boy says, coming to stand next to his sister, his face calm, and once again Charles sees Erik’s eyes, the eyes that can be an almost glacial pale blue one moment then shift to the gray blue of the angry sea.

“Get. Away.”

 _Please,_ Charles thinks to himself. _I cannot. I cannot do this._

“You spared her too,” the girl says, then she’s there. Raven. It’s not the Raven he left five years ago but the Raven he protected over and over again, her blonde hair ringing her heart-shaped face, so young, so vulnerable.

“You left me,” Raven says in a voice that rings as clear as a bell. The trembling has increased to shaking and Charles drops the gun to his side, its weight heavy in his hand. Magda stays on the bed, frozen, her hands extended, forever begging for the life of her children.

“I never left you,” Charles says, his words brimming with pain and edged with anger. “Not once. I took it all. I let myself be destroyed. For you.”

Every beating. Every cruel word. Every burn. He took it all to keep Raven safe. Doesn’t she care? Doesn’t it mean anything?

“You left me,” Raven repeats. “Don’t you think I still need you? Don’t you think I’m hurting too and if we were together, maybe we could find some peace? I have no peace. Not without you.”

“No,” Charles gasps. He reaches a hand up to touch his cheek and it’s wet with tears. “I did the right thing. I let you go, let you move on without someone like me to weigh you down. I’m twisted. I’m sick. I’m wrong.”

“You never spared yourself,” Wanda says.

“Yes,” Pietro echoes. “You never spared yourself.”

“Shut up!” Charles spits out. “Just shut up. You were a mistake, a moment of weakness. You should be dead. I didn’t spare you. I just….I just….”

Charles voice fades away as Raven steps forward, putting her hand on his arm, and even though it’s a dream. It’s all a dream. It’s not real. He can feel her touch. It’s the touch he’s longed for, the one he craves. Charles leans into it and now he can feel the tears flowing, a sob catches in his chest, a lump forms in his throat.

“I just wish it had been me who could have protected you. Just a little. Maybe it would have been enough."

Charles stares at Raven. He sees her bloodied and battered. She is broken from the inside, empty, just like he is. No. Not Raven. He knows what he must do. Charles steps back from Raven, breaking their contact. He lifts his gun and places the barrel under his chin. He smiles at the three pairs of eyes that are just watching.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” he says over and over again, his hand trembling, and then with perfect ease, he pulls the trigger. Then he screams.

_“Charles! Charles! Wake up. You have to wake up._

The voice is faraway, distant. So far away he's not sure it's real. Charles opens his mouth and screams again, then he somehow manages to open his eyes. It's dark. He doesn't know where he is. His whole body is pounding with adrenaline and he scrambles up, reaching to find his gun, to figure out where he is. It’s dark, pitch black and there are hands on him. Whose hands? Someone trying to kill him. Poison him. No. Not now. He pushes at the hands, pushes hard, using all his strength and the person is saying his name over and over again.

_Charles. Charles. Wake up. Please wake up._

_It’s me. It’s Erik._

Erik.

“Erik?” Charles manages to say in a voice hoarse with fear. Charles feels his body start to relax slightly as details begin to leak in. He’s sitting up on a couch. Erik’s couch. Erik, the man who owns this pub. Erik with his long fingers and his kind eyes. Erik who looks at him in a way that makes Charles ache in a strange manner. Erik, whose hands are moving to rub along the sides of Charles' arms now.

“Yes, Erik. Your friend. Erik.”

Is that what he is? His friend? Charles doesn’t correct him. He just leans forward as he pants and Erik’s strong hands are still on his arms, supporting him, letting him rest his weight against him.

“A dream,” Charles manages to say.

A horrible dream. The worst dream he’s had since he started being able to sleep again. It’s clear he hasn’t defeated his demons by coming to this small village on the edge of nowhere. He’s just buried them once again.

“A nightmare. You were screaming names,” Erik says. His hands are making soothing circles now, over and over and as much as Charles wants to pull away, he cannot. Erik's hands travel upwards, over Charles' shoulders, then Erik lifts them and places them on either side of Charles’ face, cradling it between his large, square hands, his long fingers holding onto Charles. Charles draws in a sharp breath and he should move. He should jerk away, push those hands off his face. Instead he leans into Erik’s touch. The feeling is comforting and novel and he wants it. He takes in a deep shaky breath and slowly the fear starts to slip back down below the surface.

“Who hurt you?” Erik asks, looking into Charles’ eyes as if searching for an answer. It’s the same question he’d asked on the boat, the same question that sent Charles into a tailspin. Charles feels like his head is full of cotton. It’s hard to think. Sharon. Kurt. The agency. Alice. They have all hurt him, but there is one person who has hurt him the most.

“Me,” Charles whispers, his eyes closing from the pain of the words he knows are true. “I’ve hurt me.”

"No," Erik whispers back and the word is almost lost in another howl of the wind.

Charles cannot look at Erik. He does not see the tenderness that overcomes the man who is still cradling his face. He misses the way Erik squeezes his eyes shut in agony. He does not watch Erik’s face come closer, then still closer, but he can feel his warmth. He can feel his breath huffing out softly. And finally he can feel the gentle touch of Erik’s lips on his.

Pain. Such exquisite pain.

No one kisses Charles. Even his anonymous conquests who stare at his mouth like it’s every dessert rolled into one don’t get to touch it. Charles has no idea what to do with this moment, Erik’s mouth on his, and he freezes. Erik doesn’t freeze. He presses his mouth insistently against Charles’, and after a long moment Charles feels Erik’s tongue lick along his lips, asking for permission. Before Charles can even think about it, he opens his mouth on instinct and welcomes Erik in, and the sigh Erik emits sends something entirely foreign crawling up Charles’ spine.

He has known lust, the animal feeling that drives him to fuck. For the first time in his life, Charles knows desire. Erik's mouth moves on his, their tongues tangle, and slowly Charles starts to break. Erik holds onto him, his hands moving back to Charles' arms, pulling him closer until Charles is leaning into Erik’s chest as Erik kisses him over and over.

It’s not that Charles is a stranger to touch. There were times when Raven would crawl in bed with him, wrapping her skinny arms around him, skimming her fingers over his newest collection of bruises. Those times were some of the few moments Charles felt remotely safe as a child, and they were few and far between. If Kurt found out what Raven meant to Charles he would exploit that weakness and would hurt Raven. So no matter how much Charles wanted his sister to soothe him, to help him feel more human, he pushed her away over and over until she learned not to offer him comfort. They grew up and Charles went to Oxford, then started working for the Agency and finally left Raven behind forever.

He’s not a stranger to touch, but he’s never been touched like this before.

Erik’s hands travel down his arms, one hand stopping at Charles' wrist and he traces circles on the delicate skin there over and over with his thumb. Charles can no longer stand the sensation and he chokes out a sob against Erik’s lips. Erik pulls back and Charles whimpers softly at the loss of contact. His wrist is still circled by Erik’s fingers. Their chests are still pressed against each other. Erik bends his head forward and touches his forehead to Charles’.

“You’re not sleeping,” Erik says, a replay of their first meeting. This time Charles answers.

“Better now. Since I came here.”

“You wake up screaming almost every night. I hear you.”

“But I can sleep. Even if the dreams don’t stop, I can sleep,” Charles explains. It’s better than slowly going crazy because he can’t even shut his eyes. “I feel…”

 _Warm. Aching. Something._ Charles feels something. It’s not unlike that cabin long ago, his mother’s laughter, the arms of his father. He hasn’t felt like this since before Kurt, and somehow here he’s been able to feel it again. He blinks with the realization.

“Safe,” Charles finishes. He feels safe.

“Come to bed,” Erik says quietly, his eyes back to that stormy gray blue, and Charles starts to recognize it as desire. He feels a flare of something similar in his groin, but it’s tempered by a deep curl of fear in his belly when he thinks about being stretched out and vulnerable next to anyone. He feels himself tense a small amount and he feels Erik’s fingers grip him harder. “No,” Erik says, “not that. Come to bed. To sleep.”

Erik wants him. It’s obvious from the way his pants are tented, the way his breath hitches, but he’s not asking for that. He’s offering to hold Charles and let him sleep. Charles nods stupidly, his movements feeling sluggish, his vision swimming. He wants this.

“Yes,” Charles finally says, his voice sounding as raw as he feels. Erik releases his wrist and stands up from the couch, towering over where Charles sits. He extends a hand and Charles stares at it for a long minute, then he takes it and allows Erik to pull him up. Erik leads him into the small bedroom, their hands still linked, and he pulls back the quilt on the bed. The storm outside has still not let up but in the bedroom it’s eerily quiet. Charles climbs into the bed, shivering a little at the chill of the sheets. Erik walks around to the other side, pulls back the quilt then slips in and stretches himself out next to Charles. It’s not a very big bed, so Charles finds that he’s very close to Erik, then Erik re-adjusts, hooking an arm around Charles’ waist, pulling him closer. Their legs tangle and Erik buries his nose in Charles’ hair, inhaling deeply then letting out a sigh. Charles holds himself stiff for what feels like a long time then slowly, in almost minute increments, he relaxes, his muscles letting go of the tension bit by bit, and he slowly lets himself lean into Erik.

“Sleep,” Erik whispers into Charles’ hair, and Charles closes his eyes, savoring the darkness it brings, grateful that at least for now, no one is there. He feels his body start to succumb to sleep, his mind drifting off a bit, and the last thing he hears before he finally drifts off is the rumble of Erik’s voice, and he sounds sad and broken.

“Who hurt you, Charles?” Erik whispers into the darkness. “And how can I make it better?”

In the end Charles escapes to the small village in North Wales just like Erik did ten years before. He was going to leave but he stays. He wakes the next morning, alone in Erik’s bed, rolled up in the covers and warm all over. Charles stretches, reaching up above him with his arms, feeling the pull of the stretch through his abdomen, pointing his toes. He makes himself as long as he can, then snaps back, ending by flopping himself onto his stomach and burying his face in a pillow that has that same Erik smell that everything else seems to have. He gets up, still wearing his pants from the day before and Erik’s old, faded t-shirt, his bare feet hitting the cold floor. Charles walks out into the sitting room and blinks in the beams of sunlight that are glowing through the window. After the storm comes the sunshine, so bright it feels strange and artificial. Erik is nowhere to be seen but Charles can see that the kettle is boiling and there is a pan of porridge sitting on the stove. Charles remembers seeing bowls near the mugs so he goes to that cupboard and grabs one, spooning the warm porridge into the bowl then taking a bite. It’s not bad. Holding the bowl in one hand Charles walks through the door that leads to the pub, pushes it open and finds Erik already at work, rag in hand, putting out glasses, piles of beer mats, all for the five to seven Welshman who tend to spend their days in the echoing great room of the Black Lion with half empty pint glasses in front of them. Charles walks around the bar and slides onto one of the stools. Has it really only been a little over a week since he first arrived, determined to see this man? It feels like a lifetime. Then Charles remembers what he’s taken from Erik, the price Erik has no idea he has paid, and his insides clench tightly.

If there’s one thing Charles is a master of, it’s compartmentalization. He’s done it all his life, putting school in one place, where he is bright and ambitious, getting good marks, saying all the right things about university. Then there’s home. Another box, where Kurt Marko and his fists live, where Charles faces fear. He puts the pain in another box, because he can’t have pain. Not from Kurt. Not from the Agency. Not from Wanda and Pietro and all their accusation. Most of all, not from Erik. Never from Erik. So when he thinks about what he’s done, about the things Erik doesn’t know, he stops and pushes them into yet another box, sealing them away, hoping the day never comes that he has to pull them out.

Charles takes another bite of porridge and Erik glances his way then offers him a quick smile. It’s not one of his friendly, easy smiles that he’s graced Charles with time and again over the last few days. It’s small and a bit shy. The kind of smile you might give someone you had spent the night with. At least Charles thinks that’s what it looks like. He’s never stuck around long enough to see if that’s what someone might look like the morning after. It seems he’s sticking around this time.

“Are you going to pack?” Erik asks, running a rag across the bar and not looking at Charles. “I interrupted your plans last night.”

“No,” Charles says, taking another bite of porridge. He doesn’t elaborate. Erik is leaning over the bar and he cocks his head sideways to quickly look at Charles, then he makes a small ‘hmmm’ sound but says nothing else. Erik is so much like this small village, quiet and contained, unshakable, and Charles thinks his response is a good one. He thinks he’s welcome, but as Erik rearranges the bottles of liquor behind the bar, he’s not entirely sure.

“Good breakfast,” Charles says after a long while. Erik finishes tidying up and comes to stand across from where Charles is sitting, the porridge mostly gone.

“Did you get some tea?”

“I will. In a few. I just...I just want to stay here for a bit.”

 _With you_ , Charles finishes silently.

They stay like that, Erik standing behind the bar, Charles sitting on the stool with the now empty bowl in front of him. The clanging of the bell is back in the distance and he can hear the cries of the seabirds as they soar up into the clouds, telling everyone that the storm has passed for now, their dark, beady eyes searching for a morsel dropped by a child or the guts from fishermen cleaning their catch. It’s hard to imagine the tempest that had happened overnight, both on the sea and the tempest that had happened in Charles’ soul. After a long while of silence, Charles takes a deep breath, clears his throat and speaks.

“My stepfather,” Charles says, his voice sounding small and strange.

“What?” Erik asks, his head jerking a little as if startled out of a dream-like state.

“You asked who hurt me,” Charles says, “My stepfather hurt me.”

He was at the top of the list. There were many others, many that Charles couldn’t talk about right now. Kurt was a start.

“He came to live with us when I was ten,.” Charles continues, fighting to keep his voice even. “My sister was eight.”

“Sister?” Erik says, looking surprised.

“Yes,.” Charles says. “Raven.”

Raven, who thinks he’s dead. Raven who visits his grave and five years later won’t stop.

“He had a son, Cain, and he was kind to Cain. He was not kind to us.”

Charles feels the pain that he keeps hidden away in the darkest corners of his mind start to leak out. He takes in a big gulp of air and forges on. Erik asked. He asked more than once. He held him overnight and soothed away the bad dreams. No matter how much it hurts, Charles wants to answer.

“He beat me. He used his fists. He used his belt. He used whatever he could find.”

“Charles,” Erik says, and the way he says Charles’ name is wretched and heartfelt. Charles feels himself start to shatter slowly. “You don’t have to.”

“No,” Charles says sharply, the words edged with anger. “I want to. I want to tell you.”

Plenty of people know what Kurt did to him. The agency has a whole file. Alice knows. She knows it makes him good. McCoy knows. He’s read the reports. But Charles has never told anyone. Not until now. Not until Erik.

“He would burn me with cigarettes for not clearing the table quick enough, bringing home bad marks, just because. I can’t even remember all the reasons.”

Charles pulls up the sleeve of the shirt he’s wearing and he watches Erik’s eyes widen, listens to him suck his breath through his teeth as his eyes rake along the small white circles of scar tissue that are scattered over Charles’ inner arm. Charles braces himself for the sympathy that he feels is inevitable with his confession, but Erik does something entirely surprising. He reaches over and closes his large hand and long fingers around Charles wrist, and lightly rubs his thumb across one of the scars. Then Erik lifts Charles’ wrist to his mouth and places a small, soft kiss on the inside, his lips pressing over the scar tissue, sending a deep shiver up his spine.

“You don’t want me,” Charles says, squeezing his eyes shut. He’s picturing Kurt, hearing the words he would use. _Useless. Nothing._ “I’m so broken that sometimes I don’t even know who I am. You’re kind and decent and you shouldn't care about me, you shouldn’t…”

“Charles,” Erik says sharply, interrupting Charles' ramblings. “Stop. You don’t know what you’re talking about. I want you. I want you more than I’ve ever wanted anyone in my entire life."

This stops Charles short. He remembers the way Erik had kissed him, sighing into his mouth. He wants that again. Erik seems to be of like mind because he leans his long torso across the bar and Charles does not pull away as Erik captures his mouth in a kiss that is sweet but quickly threatens to become something else entirely. Charles feels that desire again, a want so deep it sends a shiver through his body. Erik pulls back just as Charles is about to moan and looks at him with dilated eyes.

"I'm broken too," Erik says softly. "You're not the only one hurting."

Charles thinks about ten years ago. He thinks about Magda running away to Russia and Erik running away to the edge of the world. Ten years ago when Charles started to understand how little human life actually meant to him. Erik says he wants him, but Erik doesn't know what he's done and how broken he really is.

"Tea!" Erik says suddenly, as if he’s had a revelation, and the abruptness breaks the tension. “I started the kettle.”

At some point Charles thinks he should ask what’s going on here, but asking a question means looking for an answer, and he’s not sure he wants any answers. Instead he follows Erik back into his cozy home and lets him make him tea. He sits on the couch watching his host move around the kitchenette with a grace that seems out of place for a pub owner in a small fishing village. Erik goes into his bedroom and returns with a folded quilt, handing it to Charles.

“In case you get cold,” Erik says with a smile. “I have books too. Or if you want you could watch a bit of telly. I have a few films too.”

Charles smiles and he’s surprised how at ease he feels. It appears he’s spending the day here instead of at the bar, sitting on a stool. “I’ll read a bit. Maybe make another cup of tea.”

They day passes easily and Charles can’t remember the last time he was able to just sit and read a book. He doesn’t know if he’s ever known this kind of peace in his life. Even before the Agency, at Oxford, he was always too jumpy to sit for any period of time. Raven used to tease him for being constantly in motion and Charles remembers frowning at her a bit and telling her to have more respect for her elders, his amused tone betraying the seriousness of his words. The memory pops up suddenly, and Charles finds that it doesn’t hurt for some reason. He can remember Raven and he isn’t flooded with pain and regret.

Erik pops in and out. He tells Charles that it’s not too busy. A carload of tourists from England come in for lunch. The regulars occupy their usual seats, drinking their usual pints. One time Charles hands Erik a mug of tea and Erik smiles graciously, his eyes crinkling a bit on the edges.

“Just what I wanted,” he says, taking a sip. His voice is brimming with a quiet affection that shakes Charles to the bone.

By the time the sun starts to dip lower in the sky and the light starts to grow dimmer, Charles has managed to read almost half of the book he’d pulled off Erik’s shelf. It’s some sort of true story adventure where men are lost and found, surviving great odds, returning to their families and living out their lives as famous lecturers or famous alcoholics. There are some who will endure great tests and challenges. There are others who will crumple under the weight. Charles yawns, feeling a bit stiff from sitting for so long, and just as Charles is about to slide off the couch and amble out into the main pub, Erik comes around the corner, wiping his hand on a towel. He has the same white apron he’d he’d put on that morning but now it’s covered in stains. He throws the towel into a basket near the door to the bedroom then starts to untie his apron.

“I’ve closed up for the day,” Erik says in a matter of fact tone. “Thought you might like to go for an ice cream.”

“An ice cream?” Charles repeats, laughing lightly. “Isn’t that a bit, um juvenile?”

“Well, going out for a pint is a bit hard when you live and work in a pub. So, ice cream. I think the Coffee Cup is still open, unless Anna’s closed up for one of her son’s football games.”

“Anna," Charles frowns, "she must be the unfriendly one.”

“They’re all unfriendly at first, Charles," Erik says kindly. "Anna’s good people. And the ice cream is good too.”

In the end Erik somehow sells Charles on the idea of ice cream and a walk. It’s one of those gray days that are somewhat bearable, with only a breeze blowing off the sea and the occasional slip of sunshine here and there. Anna is indeed the woman Charles had encountered before, but this time when they walk into The Coffee Cup, her face lights up and she greets Erik by name. Erik introduces Charles and Anna frowns a bit, then calls him the Englishman. Charles wonders if anyone escapes a nickname in these parts. They end up walking back down the hill, ice cream in hand, Erik smirking a bit at Charles' choice of plain vanilla. Charles responds that he's not vanilla in other aspects of his life. Then he actually blushes. Erik grins and Charles feels a bit aghast at the fact that he's flirting with the man walking by his side. It’s strangely normal.

They wander past The Black Lion, and then along the waterfront until Erik leads Charles to a narrow dirt path that winds its way along the high hills that overlook the sea. They keep walking as the sun starts to slip behind the horizon, Erik leading Charles. The wind is making Charles' cheeks and nose cold and he shivers a little. They meander in silence, Charles taking in the sheer beauty of the sea and the rugged coastline, until Erik suddenly comes to a stop and Charles finds himself almost running into the taller man, his chest colliding into Erik’s broad back.

“Sorry,” Erik mumbles, turning around. “I wanted to share this, I mean this is one of my favorite spots on the island, and at sunset….”

Erik’s voice trails off.

They are standing side by side on a point of land, staring out over the sea that is lit up red and gold with the colors of the setting sun. It’s breathtaking. Almost as breathtaking as the man standing next to him, his eyes squinting into the dying brightness. Charles glances over then, on impulse, reaches out and takes Erik’s hand in his. Charles doesn’t touch people. He doesn’t initiate contact. He’s half afraid Erik will jerk away, but he doesn’t. He gives Charles' hand a reassuring squeeze then pulls him even closer. They stand side by side, pressed up against each other, neither saying a word.

"Stay with me tonight," Erik says so softly Charles can barely hear his words over the sound of the waves breaking on the beach below. Charles grows still and he thinks about what Erik is asking.

“I…” Charles starts, then he looks over at Erik. With anyone else he might have tried to hide how in tumult he feels, so many different emotions colliding all at once, but with Erik he just lays them bare. Their eyes lock.

“Just to sleep,” Erik clarifies, as if he can read Charles’ mind. Charles feels himself sag in relief. He thinks about the warmth of Erik’s bed, the warmth of Erik’s body and the safety of his arms. He thinks about the peace he felt the night before, how despite the turmoil of the storm and the turmoil of his soul, he was able to sleep.

“Yes,” Charles answers and he’s rewarded with a smile. “I’d like to stay.”

They make their way back to the pub. It’s dark now, the sun having fully disappeared beneath the horizon and Charles is fully aware that he is walking along the edge of high cliffs, one misstep could lead to plunging into the blackness below, into water that would kill him. Erik knows his way, leading Charles back to town, navigating his way along the narrow path with confidence and sure-footedness, his hand holding Charles’ tightly the entire time. The wind starts to rise, howling through the rocks below, traveling across the dreary land in great gusts. Charles should feel uneasy facing the endless power of nature, but he doesn’t. He feels the safest he’s ever felt. When they finally reach the pub Charles is chilled to the bone, his teeth chattering. Erik opens the door and pulls Charles in behind him, leading him directly to the back, and even this feels infused with a strange new purpose.

Once they’re in the quiet, snug rooms Erik calls home, Erik motions for Charles to sit on the couch and goes to turn on the kettle.

“You’re cold,” Erik murmurs, grabbing the quilt he’d given to Charles earlier, throwing it over Charles, then moving closer to tuck it around him with deft fingers. Charles shivers, and again it’s not just from the cold.

“Better,” Charles says, pulling the quilt tighter.

“A fire?” Erik says, moving towards the fireplace.

“No,” Charles says, although the warmth of a fire sounds nice. It’s not what he wants right now. “I want you to take me to bed.”

Charles hears Erik exhale heavily at his words.

“Okay,” Erik says, then he repeats it again, his hands plucking at the fabric of his jeans, and his voice sounds strangely nervous. “I can do that.”

The kettle dings but Erik ignores it as he walks over to stand next to the couch, towering above Charles. He reaches out a hand and Charles struggles to free his from the quilt that’s wrapped tightly around it. Finally their hands meet, fingers intertwining and Erik pulls Charles to a stand. Hands linked, they walk slowly toward the bedroom, Erik once again leading the way. Once they’re in the bedroom, Charles stands in front of Erik who reaches out and starts to undress him, slowly and carefully, and Charles just lets him. He doesn’t try to help, doesn’t lift a hand to pull his shirt over his head or unzip his jeans. He holds still, not even twitching at the feel of Erik’s fingers on his skin, watching Erik with careful eyes and trusting… _trusting_...Erik. Erik removes Charles’ shirt, his jeans. He goes down on one knee and pulls off each sock, leaving Charles standing in just his boxers, his skin pricking from the cold, his nipples hardening.

“All the way?” Erik asks, and Charles knows he’s asking more than if Charles would like to keep his boxers on or not. He’s asking if Charles wants to keep something between them, a layer of protection, and Charles answers ‘no’. He wants no barriers, not even a thin layer of cloth. Erik smiles then reaches out, hooking his fingers on the waistband of Charles boxers and he pulls them down until they’re a puddle around Charles’ feet. Charles carefully steps out of them. Finally he stands naked in front of Erik, exposed, vulnerable. Erik’s eyes travel up his body, just like that first day when he interrupted Charles on the way to the washroom, but this time it’s not Erik stealing a look but Charles offering himself up.

“Please,” Charles whispers, not entirely sure what he’s asking for. Please touch me. Please hold me. Please keep me safe.

“Yes,” Erik answers, as if he knows that he can give Charles what he needs, and the very fact that Erik is willing to give something this simple shakes him to the core. Erik take his hands, placing his palms on Charles’ shoulders, and he strokes them slowly down his arms, ending by taking both Charles' hands in his, then he turns them over, leans down and places a kiss in the center of the palm of one then the other. He releases Charles’ hands, and with swift efficiency, strips off his own clothes until they are standing naked in front of each other in the dim light of the bedroom.

This is the first time Charles has seen Erik naked and what he sees takes his breath away. Erik is all muscled planes and sharp angles, broad shoulders tapering down to narrow hips, his cock is soft, dangling in a nest of curling pubic hair, strongly muscled thighs.

There was a time when Charles would have said there was no safe place in the world for him, but now as he watches Erik looking at him, taking him in with soft eyes, he knows he has found what he once thought was impossible. He feels bare, exposed, but he doesn’t feel afraid.

“Come,” Erik says, reaching for Charles’ hand, and once again their fingers intertwine. Erik turns towards the bed, pulling the covers back, then he motions for Charles to climb in. Charles nods and slides onto the bed, stretching out on the cool sheets. He feels the mattress dip as Erik crawls in to lie beside him. Erik turns on his side, pulling Charles back against him, and they are finally pressed against each other, Erik’s arm heavy on Charles’ waist, his leg tangling between Charles', and Charles presses his ass back into the cradle of Erik’s’ hips, savoring the way he fits almost perfectly against him. Charles takes in a deep breath and slowly he feels his body start to relax, as if it holds muscle memory from sleeping in Erik’s arms the previous night and knows this is safe. He closes his eyes and his body starts to feel heavy.

As he’s starting to drift off, Charles feels the warm press of lips against the back of his neck. Once. Twice. A third kiss that finds its way to the skin just below his ear. Charles knows he should pull away, knows that if it goes much further it will be too much, but Erik’s lips on his skin feel good enough that he stays. Then he hears Erik whisper against his ear, his voice low. What he says makes Charles’ breath hitch, and maybe it’s the cover of darkness that makes them both bolder.

“How did you find me?” Erik says. “In this whole world full of people, how did you find me?”

Charles feels the sting of tears under his eyelids and he reaches to trace his fingers along Erik’s forearm, the one that is slung around his waist, trailing them along skin and muscle until he finds Erik’s hand and once again tangles their fingers together. He pulls their linked hands up then presses them both to his chest, right where his heart is beating quick and strong. Charles feels an ache so sharp that he can’t breathe, and he realizes that Erik, this man, has unearthed something in him that he thought he’d lost long ago. Something that he thought had been beaten and burned out of him. Yet here it is, alive, spreading out and slowly filling him with warmth and light. Charles squeezes his eyes shut as tight as he can make them. Because what he feels is love, and if there’s anyone in the world who doesn’t deserve love, it’s him.

Charles sleeps the whole night. No dreams. No children. No screaming in the middle of the night. When Charles finally surfaces from a sleep deeper than he’s known in years he finds that he and Erik are entirely tangled together. They are pressed up against each other, chest to chest, and Charles' face is pillowed by Erik’s arm. He slowly opens his eyes and turns his head to nuzzle into the crook of Erik’s neck, inhaling his sleep-warm, musky scent. Charles might think it incredible that Erik can smell good in the morning, except he’s actually never woken up with someone like this. Maybe everyone smells this good and he’s been missing out. Charles turns his head a little further and without even thinking about what he’s doing, or what it means, he presses a soft, light kiss to the bare skin on the inside of Erik’s bicep. Erik stirs slightly at the touch and Charles glances up to see the other man’s eyes slowly blinking open. Charles presses a second kiss next to where he’d placed the first. Erik shifts a bit more and one of his hands comes up to card through Charles’ hair. The shift causes his thigh to press against Charles’ cock and he realizes that he’s half-hard, a combination of waking up and something else.

“Mmmmmmm,” Erik rumbles and Charles realizes that he’s felt his hardening cock on his thigh. The sound of Erik’s voice causes something to shift inside Charles, and he feels slow tendrils of desire start to curl up from somewhere deep inside.

“Erik,” Charles whispers against Erik’s hot skin, holding himself very still. “I...I think I want you.”

“It seems that way,” Erik says, succinctly with a hint of humor, and he shifts himself again. This time the friction makes Charles gasp and this earns a smile from Erik.

“It’s just...I’ve never done this before.”

Erik’s hand stills.

“You mean, you’ve never fucked someone before?” Erik asks slowly, seeking clarification.

“No,” Charles says, huffing out a dry laugh. “I’ve slept with my fair share of men. Just, not like this.”

He’s known back alleyways and hotel rooms you rent by the hour, but never once has he woken up next to someone and wanted them like this. He’s never wanted anyone the way he wants Erik, not once in his entire life. Sex has always been a release, and now what he feels, the way he wants this man, is something entirely different.

Erik doesn’t say anything. Charles keeps his eyes level with Erik’s chest, scared to look into his face. Erik seems to sense this, because he whispers Charles' name and the humor is gone. In its place is a heartbreaking gentleness.

“Look at me,” Erik says. Charles can’t. His head feels frozen in place. He can only stare into the room.

“Charles,” Erik says again, “please, look at me.”

Slowly Charles lifts his head, angles it up to look into Erik’s eyes, and what he sees there shocks him to his very core. He doesn’t see judgement. There is no shame. There’s not even lust. Erik looks at Charles in a way no other man has looked at him. It’s love. Undeniable, entirely pure love.

“I don’t care about your past,” Erik says softly, “except that I’d kill your stepfather if I could.”

Charles tries hard not to wince. Already done, he thinks.

“I’ll take what you can give. I want you. I want to fuck you, to taste you, to watch you come undone, but only when you can give all of that to me. I know you’ve been hurt. I don’t want to be added to the list of the people in your life who have hurt you. So whatever is in your past, I’m fine to leave it there.”

If only it were true. Charles knows Erik can say this only because he has no idea exactly who Charles is, and for one brief moment the outside world that Charles has been avoiding seeps in, and Charles can’t stop the thought that no matter how good this is, it’s only a matter of time before it implodes. Charles’ breath hitches and he carefully pushes the fear away, tucking it away for another time. Right now all he wants is Erik. Nothing more and nothing less.

“Kiss me,” Charles whispers, and with that, permission has been given. He’s going to let Erik fuck him. He’s going to cross the line into something entirely unknown that he knows will ultimately ruin him. Charles can’t help it. He wants this man and everything he offers. He wants love, even if it’s only going to bring him heartbreak. He wants to feel. Because Erik chases the demons away, and he can sleep in his arms. He buys him ice cream. He tucks a quilt around him and worries if he’s warm enough. Charles wants all of that, even if he knows there is no way it won’t end...

Just as Charles asks, Erik kisses him. There is nothing gentle about his kiss, mouth sliding against Charles', and Charles briefly realizes how much Erik has been holding back. His mouth is hot and insistent, and there is no hesitation as Erik’s tongue licks into Charles’ mouth. Charles meets him, thrust for thrust, swipe for swipe, hungry for so much more than this. Charles moans and it’s almost a plea. They are naked already, so when Erik’s hand slides around Charles' back then down to the curve of his buttocks, pulling him roughly against him, there is nothing to buffer the impact of their cocks meeting and the sensation is almost unbearable. Charles works to calm himself, struggling to slow his breathing, because he knows from his response he’s not going to last long. Erik stops kissing him briefly and he looks down at Charles who is taking deep, shaky breaths.

“That good, huh?”

“God yes, Erik,” Charles answers, that sense of franticness starting to ease. Everything about Erik is that good. His body, hot and hard. His cock pressing into Charles' belly. His lips that don’t seem to want to stop kissing Charles. His hands that skim across Charles’ ribs, reaching behind and cupping his buttocks, making him gasp. Everything about this is that good and better. “Slow,” Charles whispers, “go slow.”

Erik moves his mouth to place a kiss at the base of Charles throat, a quick single touch that makes Charles moan for more, arching his back towards Erik’s touch. Erik smiles up again then drops another kiss further down his chest, earning himself another moan. He licks a stripe along Charles’ collarbone and Charles shivers. One of his hands slides down Charles' side until it reaches his hip bone and Erik grips it as his mouth finds Charles' nipple. He laves it with his tongue, and the hand gripping Charles' hip presses him gently into the mattress just as he scrapes Charles' increasingly sensitive nipple with his teeth.

"Slow enough?" Erik asks against Charles' skin.

"Perfect," Charles pants. He feels Erik smile against his skin then he lifts his head and Charles is about to whimper in protest when Erik dips down and starts to lick at his other nipple. Erik continues his attentions until Charles is straining upwards and he's hissing all kinds of expletives, from bastard to declaring that Erik is a fucking arse. This neither slows down or speeds up Erik's attentions, which makes Charles feel increasingly crazy with lust. His cock is getting harder and harder, precum leaking from the tip. Finally he takes his hand and reaches down towards his aching groin only to have Erik grab his wrist and making a tutting sound. It’s such a strange, mothering noise that Charles almost chokes out a laugh, but what he really wants to do is cry because he’s aching.

“No,” Erik says, looking up at him. “It’s my turn. I want to make you come.”

No one takes care of Charles. Even in bed, Charles takes what he wants, and now Erik’s asking him to let go. Charles swallows as he stares down at Erik. He wants to give Erik what he’s asking, and his body is almost trembling with how much he wants this. All of it. Then there’s the fear that lurks in the background, that says letting go means he’s vulnerable. Letting go is dangerous.

“You don’t have to…” Eriks says quietly, “We can do whatever you want, but I want...I want to take care of you.”

Charles swallows. He knows what Erik is asking. He nods.

“Yes,” Charles says in a hoarse whisper. With that single word Erik ranges up over him and kisses him, long and deep, and Charles gasps and wraps his arms around Erik’s slim waist, pulling him close until there is no space between them, skin slipping against skin. Charles bends his knees, cradling Erik between them, bracing his feet against the bed and his hips twitch upwards involuntarily, seeking contact.

Erik pulls away from Charles, but not far, his breath huffing against Charles’ lips. Charles mews out a little whine and tries to seek out Erik’s lips, but Erik pulls back, not allowing Charles to have what he’s asking for.

“I want to fuck you,” Erik says and Charles suddenly stills. Their chests press together and Erik’s is a heavy, pleasant weight pressing Charles into the bed. Charles turns his head away from Erik.

“I haven’t...I mean, once. It wasn’t good.”

Not being good wasn’t even the right way to describe it. Charles was young and the other man was not, and it felt borderline non-consensual and despite the pain, Charles still managed to come. He feels ashamed over what happened, that he didn’t say ‘no’. He tries to tell himself he was young, that it was just his body reacting, but what happened never feels okay no matter how much he explains it.

Erik appears to deduce that something traumatic happened to Charles because his brow furrows and a darkness settles into his eyes. Charles knows this look. Staring up at him, Charles can see that no matter how much kindness Erik shows, there is part of him that can hurt people, and probably has hurt people. He thinks that they may not be so far apart in life and suspects that Erik also harbors secrets, although they don’t seem to sit quite as close to the surface as they do for Charles. They also might not hold the power to destroy everything they’re building together.

“We don’t have to,” Erik says quietly. “I’m okay with whatever you want.”

“No,” Charles whispers. He knows that he must excise these ghosts if he’s going to have any chance of being with Erik. He can’t be the same Charles Xavier who spends his entire life running from his demons. “I want what you want. I want you inside me. I want this.”

Erik’s breath hitches and he squeezes his eyes shut as if in pain. He’s holding himself with his arms, suspended above Charles, and this allows Charles to study his face. His brow is furrowed, there are lines from the wind and the sun around his eyes, his cheek is rough from a day’s growth of stubble. Charles knows that when Erik finally opens his eyes they will be that slate blue, the color of the stormy sea that he lives above, his pupils blown, wanting. He looks at his lips, thin, bitten, and thinks of the way Erik kisses him, like he’s dying for Charles’ mouth. He sees moisture in the corner of Erik’s eyes, leaking from under his thick, dark lashes, and wants to reach up and wipe it away before it becomes tears.

“Erik,” Charles finally says, taking in a long, shaking breath. “I’m ready.”

_Ready for this. Ready for you. Ready for us. All of it._

Charles' words seem to break down anything that had been holding Erik back before. His mouth crashes into Charles’ in a kiss that’s almost punishing with its force and Erik lowers his full weight down onto Charles, pressing him into the bed. Charles struggles to breathe but Erik’s weight feels good in a way he never would have expected. He never wants it to stop, so when Erik breaks their kiss and rolls off him, Charles mewls involuntarily at the loss of contact.

“Lube, condom,” Erik grunts as way of explanation. He stretches over to pull open the drawer of the small table by the bed, then he rolls himself back to press close to Charles’ side, propping himself up on one elbow. Charles stares at him, arching up his hips and begging to have that full-body contact back, imploring Erik to crush him into the mattress again.

“You’re beautiful like this,” Erik says softly, and Charles wants to tell him that he’s being cruel, lying stretched out next to him like they have all the time in the world. All he can managed is to arch up his hips again and mutter ‘shut up and fuck me’ from between clenched teeth. All this does is cause Erik to chuckle softly.

“That’s what I’m getting ready to do, Charles,” he says, leaning forward to brush a kiss across Charles’ forehead. “But I plan for you to be properly fucked and for that, I need to get you ready. Especially if you haven’t taken cock that often.”

Charles blinks and he feels his desperation start to ease a bit. He watches as Erik takes the lube and squirts a bit onto his fingers, rubbing it between them.

“Slippery,” Erik says with a grin, and this causes Charles to moan a bit.

“Fucking tease,” Charles spits out.

“Bend your knees,” Eriks says and Charles does as requested, digging his heels into the mattress. Erik takes his non-dominant hand and gently pushes Charles knees until they fall apart and Charles feels open and exposed. Erik reaches between Charles' legs and takes his balls in his hand, massaging them gently, causing Charles to moan lightly. It feels good. Really good. After doing this two or three times, he traces a slicked up finger down his perineum, slowly, with an intent that makes Charles feel like he’s about to crawl out of his skin. He slides his finger between Charles’ buttocks then stops to rub the pad of his finger across Charles’ sensitive anus. Charles jumps a little at the contact and Erik stills.

“Okay?” Erik whispers, staring down at him.

“Yes,” Charles gasps.

Erik nods and his finger starts moving again, rubbing against that tight sphincter of muscle that seems to be a cluster of nerves, and the sensation is just short of incredible. Erik rubs then taps, then rubs again. Charles pushes himself toward Erik’s finger, wanting more.

“Okay,” Erik says, “Are you ready for me to go inside?” Charles nods. “When you feel me press, I want you to bear down.”

Charles nods again. Erik continues to rub those small circles then Charles feels him press a bit inwards and just as Erik told him, he bears down and Erik’s finger slides all the way inside, stretching the sphincter slightly and pleasantly.

“Oh,” Charles says, his eyes going wide at the sensation. Erik smiles.

“Uh huh,” Erik murmurs. “‘Oh’ is right. You're tight.” He starts to move his finger, sliding it out a bit then back in, then out again. Charles bites his lower lip and arches into the sensation and manages to murmur ‘that’s good’. Erik changes to stroking the inner walls of Charles' rectum in a small, circular motion and that’s even better. Charles hums a bit, low and rumbling and his eyes flutter shut. Erik returns to sliding his finger in and out, going a little faster and Charles starts to pant.

“God, Erik.”

Erik pushes one of his long, gorgeous fingers all the way into Charles' ass, angling it towards Charles' front and holding it there for a long second. Charles is about to beg Erik to move when he starts to pull it out, slowly, almost tortuously until he reaches a spot that suddenly sends pleasure flooding through Charles' body. Charles lets out a drawn out deep groan at the sensation, his whole body quivering as Erik strokes over that spot again, then one more time.

“There it is,” Erik murmurs, sounding satisfied. He starts to make circles with his fingers and the waves of pleasure continue to build.

“Prostate?” Charles somehow manages to gasp.

“Mmmmm hmmmmm,” Erik murmurs, sounding a bit smug and even a little cheeky as Charles writhes on the bed.

“S’good. Really good,” Charles gasps as Erik makes another set of circles. Charles wants more, so much more, but Erik seems to have other ideas. He pulls his finger further out then works it in circles at the sphincter, stretching Charles in a way that burns a little but mostly feels good. Then he takes it out completely and Charles whimpers. His cock is harder than he thinks it’s ever been, and he’s leaking so much precum, it’s wet. Erik stays propped up on one arm for a moment longer, staring down at Charles, and Charles feels on display, like he wants to look away, but he forces himself to look at Erik, putting everything into that moment.

“Okay,” Erik finally says. Charles hears the crinkle of a condom wrapper. Erik reaches for the lube and squirts more into his palm then he reaches down and slicks up his cock, and Charles watches his face, taking in how Erik looks as he touches himself. Erik had told Charles he was beautiful earlier. If Charles could find his voice, he would say the same to Erik now. He’s breathtaking with his eyes fluttering shut and his jaw gone slack. Erik then reaches to span his hand across Charles' hip, pushing him until he’s up on one hip, lying on his side.

“Hug your knees,” Erik whispers, and Charles nods, wrapping his arms around his knees then pulling them up to his chest and he feels his ass spread open. Erik slides behind him, pressing his chest down Charles' back and Charles feels Erik's cock pressing against his ass, and he feels hard and huge. Charles pushes back against Erik and he’s rewarded with a moan. If Erik wanted to just rub himself against Charles’ cleft until he came, that would be fine, but Erik has other ideas. He reaches down between them, and Charles feels him positioning his cock against his anus, he feels the blunt head press against the sphincter, then Erik pushes forward and with a slick pop, his cock sinks into Charles’ ass.

“Oh god, Erik,” Charles hisses through clenched teeth.

They both hold still for a long moment, Charles feeling stretched and full, a little strange. It’s not an entirely unpleasant sensation and any discomfort is offset by the gentleness in Erik’s touch as he runs his fingers up Charles’ arm. He’s relaxed and comfortable when Erik slips his arm under Charles’ head, pillowing it, and his other comes around his waist. Erik’s fingers softly stroking the hair that extends from his belly down towards Charles’ groin, and he is pressing soft kisses along the back of Charles’ neck, leaving Charles shivering with anticipation. He stays still as they both adjust to the feeling of Erik being inside Charles for the first time.

“Okay?” Erik asks, his voice sounding thick with arousal.

“God, yes,” Charles answers, his eyes fluttering shut, those shivers still running through his body, “amazing. I'm ready Erik.”

“Absolutely,” Erik rumbles pleasantly, pulling Charles even tighter against him. This is not what Charles is used to, which is fast and desperate fucks that are meant to get him off. It’s slow and sweet, and Charles feels like every nerve is on fire. It’s sensual in a way that Charles has never experienced.

Erik starts to move. He pushes his cock into Charles, slowly, almost languid, and with each shallow thrust Charles moans softly. Erik shifts a bit behind him, changing the angle a bit, and with the next thrust he’s able to go deeper and his cock slides across Charles’ prostate. Charles groans and those deep curls of pleasure start up again, leaving Charles panting and pushing back against Erik, wanting more. Erik holds him tighter, and Charles feels him press more soft, breathy kisses on the nape of his neck.

They stay like this for a while, Erik setting an unhurried pace, his cock sliding back and forth across Charles’ prostate, Charles in the grip of wave after wave of slow-building pleasure until he starts to feel dizzy with the feeling of Erik fucking him. It’s almost as if he’s floating along, buoyed by all the sensations that are steadily building and he feels like he’s getting closer and closer to the edge of something he can’t quite make out in the distance.

At some point Erik starts to pick up the pace, thrusting a little harder and a little deeper, his arm pulling Charles even closer. Their skin is slick with sweat and their bodies are hot, but Charles can’t even imagine pulling away, they’re so wrapped up in each other. Erik’s face is buried in the nape of Charles' neck and his breath huffs against his skin, ticking the fine hairs there. Charles hears him start to moan louder, and his hips start to jerk, the steady pace becoming jagged. Erik is panting now and the pleasure that’s been building slowly in Charles starts to reach the point of unbearable. Charles grunts out Erik’s name, and it’s a plea to do whatever he can to finally push Charles over the edge into the bliss that he knows is waiting for him. Erik’s pace increases, his hips snap forward like a piston and he grunts out Charles’ name, followed by, ‘I’m going to come.’

“Please,” Charles somehow manages to spit out as he feels Erik’s movements become even more erratic. He grabs Erik’s hand and pulls it downwards. Erik knows what Charles wants because he needs no more coaxing. Just as his hips snap forward hard, and he tenses against Charles’ back, his hand wraps around Charles' cock. Charles is so aroused that it takes just a few strokes with that large, square hand and as Erik comes, his cock pulsing in Charles' ass, Charles is coming too, shooting ejaculate onto Erik’s hand and halfway across the bed.

“Fuck,” Erik groans, releasing Charles’ cock and wrapping his arm tightly around Charles’ waist.

“Damn,” Charles counters, breathing hard, and leaning back, letting himself rest against Erik’s chest. Erik’s cock is still inside him but Charles can barely think to move, or clean up or anything. He is a quivering mess, his arms and legs feel limp and boneless. He closes his eyes and then he feels Erik laughing against his back.

“Oh Charles,” Erik says against his nape. “That was...it was just, wonderful.”

Charles jerks with the aftermath of his orgasm and slowly he comes back down. As he does, everything he’s been holding back comes crashing in, and suddenly the way he feels and Erik holding him becomes too much. Charles feels over sensitized and jumpy. He twists a little in Erik’s arms, and Erik responds by holding him even tighter. This sends a bolt of panic through Charles and he grabs hold of Erik’s forearm, pulls it off his waist and abruptly pushes himself away from Erik, Erik’s cock slipping out of him. The moment he does this, Charles feels a great wave of shame crashing down on him. What just happened was amazing yet here he is trying to get away, putting space between him and Erik and the look on Erik’s face makes Charles feel like he’s being ripped into two. He quickly scoots himself up to the head of the bed, his back resting on the wall behind it, his knees drawn up and his arms wrapped around them and he stares at Erik, who is staring back at him.

“It’s too much,” Charles manages to whisper. It’s the best explanation he can give about something he himself can barely understand. He just had the most intimate sex of his entire life, and in the end he felt like his whole self was laid bare for Erik, and he wanted that, but now he’s scared and even the thought of Erik touching him makes him afraid. Not afraid of Erik but afraid of how much he feels.

“It’s okay,” Erik says, watching Charles carefully, his eyes wary. “You can stay here. I need to open the pub anyway.”

Charles nods. He feels his body start to relax a little. It’s okay. Erik isn’t going to push him. He’s not going to get angry with him. He will let him stay here until everything starts to feel better.

Erik rolls out of bed and walks around to stand next to where Charles is still sitting with his arms around his knees. He stares down at Charles then gives him a gentle smile.

“This is okay,” Erik says, “I don’t need more than what you can offer, Charles. You just gave me more than I expected. And with some time, I know we’ll both be able to offer each other more and more.”

_Time_

Charles feels a tear roll down his cheek. It ends up stopping at the upper bow of his lip and Charles licks at it, tasting the salt. He nods his head in understanding, unable to speak, and his whole body is trembling. Charles squeezes his eyes shut for a brief moment then he opens them.

“I’ll be okay,” Charles says and he knows the words are true. He has faced so little kindness in his life and now Erik is offering it without any expectation of return, and it cuts Charles to the quick. He wants to give back, but he can’t. At least not now. But maybe in the future. Maybe if they have enough time, he’ll be able to let Erik fuck him and then stay in his arms for the blissful post-coital intimacy that seems to be sending him into a tailspin.

“Can I kiss you?” Erik asks. Charles nods and Erik leans down to place a firm, chaste kiss on Charles' mouth.

“Thank you,” Charles says and Erik answers with one last quick, almost perfunctory kiss, then he smiles broadly and tells Charles that he can’t go open the pub stinking of sex, so he’ll need to go shower. Charles watches him walk into the bathroom, admiring the contours of his ass, then he slides down into the bed, not caring that he’s a stinking, come-covered mess, and slowly he lets himself drift back to sleep, content with the knowledge that when he wakes, Erik will be there, and forgetting that they actually don’t have the time Erik has promised him and that no matter what Charles does or feels, nothing will stop the end from drawing closer and closer.

They settle into a pattern. Erik works every day, rolling out of bed and out of Charles’ arms early in the morning. He makes tea and porridge, ignoring the fact that Charles makes a face at the porridge when he finally joins him, grabbing a bowl and spoon and poking at the breakfast a bit with it, but in the end he always eats it. Erik works and Charles stays in the sitting room. Sometimes when he gets up Erik has started a fire and Charles curls up on the end of the couch closest to the hearth, soaking up the warmth.

He reads. Erik seems to have an endless supply of real-life adventure books, so Charles reads about disasters on Mt. Everest, about the perils of storms, about men making their way across the frozen tundra with no food. There are a few classics. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, and reading it Charles feels like the monster, patched together, misunderstood. Catch-22. Erik comments on Charles’ appetite for books. Charles tells him he hasn’t had much time to read since leaving Oxford.

Erik never asks Charles what he did after Oxford. It’s a strange courtship, one where neither of them makes an effort to pry much, accepting that what they have must remain in the present for the time being. Charles doesn’t ask why Erik left Germany. Erik never asks what Charles was running from when he came to this small, isolated village. They stay in the moment.

They fuck. Every night Erik takes Charles apart, piece by piece, and all it takes is Erik’s gentleness, the way he cares, to pry open places Charles never thought would see the light of day. He ends up open, both emotionally and physically, in a way he never thought was possible. Before he’d always seen sex as relief and power. Now it has become an intimacy so precious that he sometimes finds himself sobbing as Erik uses his hands, his mouth, his cock to coax him to orgasm. It’s not just that Charles has never had a regular lover before, it’s that no one has touched him in a way that makes him feel almost human again. When he lies in Erik’ arms, calls Erik’s name, he thinks he might be able to survive this world, and it never fails that in those minutes and hours after sex Charles almost believes the lies he tells himself; that none of this has to end.

Erik closes down the Black Lion every Wednesday afternoon, just like all the other shops in the village. They take his boat out, or walk along the coastal path, Charles wearing the same blue wool fisherman’s sweater Erik had leant him before, both of them in wet gear to defend against the rain or the salt spray of the sea. If the weather is too foul to go outside, they stay in, stretched along the couch with a fire crackling on the hearth, the rain battering the thin warped windows of the pub. Charles reads as Erik slowly cards his fingers through his hair, the quilt wrapped around both of them.

Sometimes Charles ventures out by himself, and one day he’s pleased when he stops at the Coffee Pot and Anna smiles when she looks up from her book.

“Hullo Englishman,” she says gruffly.

“Hullo Anna,” Charles counters. He orders a coffee and drinks it there, and Anna puts her book down and tells him all about her son’s football league.

Charles thinks things could stay like this forever, and they might have, except that someone else has different ideas. That someone else is his handler, Alice, and three weeks after the first time Charles and Erik slept together, she shows up.

“You have a visitor,” Erik says, poking his head through the door that leads out to the pub. His tone is neutral but he has a strange look on his face. Charles frowns a bit, but he has a reasonable idea who it is. He pushes the quilt aside and stands up, feeling irritable that his warm repose has been disturbed, and that it’s most likely by Alice. He’s proven right when he walks into the pub to find her perched on a stool, her mouth curled in a perfect smile. Erik is standing behind the bar looking at her warily.

“Charles, darling,” Alice says brightly and her tone makes Charles’ skin crawl. She stands as he gets closer and when he’s standing in front of her, she takes her hands and places them on his arms then leans forward and places a kiss on each cheek. Charles fights his urge to visibly shudder. It appears to be a friendly greeting between friends but to Charles it feels like a declaration of war.

“Alice,” Charles says, almost as brightly, his tone mirroring hers.

He senses Erik bristling from behind the bar and Charles almost smiles to himself. His darling Erik, picking up on the tension between them, knowing something is amiss. “So good to see you. Would you like a tour of the village?”

All Charles can think is that he needs to get Alice out of the pub, away from Erik. He can tell that she’s in the kind of mood that makes her far more dangerous than usual.

“I would love to,” Alice intones, “I’ve missed you, Charles. All of our friends have.”

Charles manages not to scoff at Alice’s use of the world ‘friends’. He has no friends. The agency misses him and Alice is here to bring him back. He turns from Alice and goes to the back, grabbing the heavy blue sweater that has become his own, but still smells like Erik. He pulls it over his head and briefly closes his eyes, trying to push back the feeling of dread that is welling up. It’s not that Charles hasn’t faced danger. He’s been on the edge of losing his life countless times on various missions. But Alice is a different kind of danger and she’s always been on his side. Up until now.

He returns to the pub and Alice picks up her clutch from the bar, offering him that same smile. Charles might nod to Erik, tell him he’ll return shortly, but Alice has seen enough already and she doesn’t need even more ammunition. Alice squints in the diffuse light from the overcast sky then hunts around in her clutch until she finds a pair of sunglasses. They walk down the block and Charles manages to say something about one of the shops up the street when Alice turns to him, peering over her sunglasses.

“Cut the crap, Charles,” Alice hisses. “I'm not here for the sights. You’re fucking playing house with him?”

“I knew you were being too nice, Alice,” Charles says cooly. “You told me to take a holiday. I’m doing as you told.”

“I didn’t tell you to move in with some arsehole.”

Charles fights back his urge to defend what’s been done. He will not tell Alice that Erik is good for him. Good _to_ him in a way that gives Charles hope he’s never had before. He will not let Alice know this, because she will try to rip all of that away from him.

"Sod off, Alice," Charles says. They walk down the hill, towards the harbor where the fishing boats are just starting to come in from the day.

"We have a job in Budapest," Alice says, tucking a strand of hair that’s being blown by the wind back behind her ear.

"I told you to sod off," Charles growls. Suddenly Charles wants nothing more than a cigarette. He rubs his fingers against each other, missing the feel of holding one. Alice turns her head and looks at him through narrowed eyes.

"You're a fucking idiot, Xavier. What you’re doing, it’s dangerous.”

They are now walking along the docks and they both stop in front of a bench. Charles looks around. It’s public, there are people on the docks. Alice won’t try something here. Not with so many witnesses. Charles decides to stop. He sits down, and looks up at Alice.

“What, pray tell, am I doing Alice?” Charles asks cooly.

“You can’t have him, Charles. You know that. You knew that when you started all of this.” Charles stares out over the water as Alice settles next to him on the bench, sitting close but not close enough to touch. She plays with one finger of the black leather gloves she’s wearing. “Your only relationship is, and will ever be, with the Agency, Charles. With me. Someone like Erik Lehnsherr - he doesn’t fit in our world.”

“I don’t fit in your world anymore, Alice,” Charles says slowly, and with those words he realizes something that’s been bubbling in the back of his mind for a while now. It was there before Erik. It started when he left those children alive. “I want out.”

Alice huffs out a small, dry laugh.

“There’s only one way out, Charles. You know that. You aren’t just let go from the Agency. It’s a lifetime appointment.”

“I know you, Alice. You’re smart. If anyone can make it happen, you can. I want out.”

“And what then?” Alice asks. “You stay here, live with Lehnsherr. What do you tell him about your past? How do you make that work? Does he accept that the man he fucks at night has killed countless people? Do you even know how many anymore, or should I have the Agency run a report? Names? Birthdays? Survivors? Tell me Charles? How do you have a normal life after you’ve done what you’ve done?”

Alice makes the cut. It hurts. Charles can’t answer. He stares at the docks but he doesn’t see anything in front of him. He’s picturing Erik. Erik, who looks at him like he’s the long-lost eighth wonder of the world, who sometimes kisses him on the cheek just because, who chants his name in the deepest night like it’s a prayer as he fucks into Charles. Erik. How would he tell Erik the truth. Charles’ mouth feels dry.

“I want a chance to try, Alice,” Charles says.

“And we want you back,” Alice says, and her tone turns casual. Anyone listening wouldn’t think anything of what Alice says next, but Charles knows Alice, and her tone might be casual to an outsider, but to Charles it’s full of threat. “Think about the consequences, Charles. I suspect if you really think about it, the answer will be crystal clear. I suggest you be careful with Lehnsherr. Everyone has a past. Sometimes the past can rear its ugly head in ways least expected.”

_Fuck._

Anyone else might realize five minutes after Alice walks away that she’s just made a threat, but Charles knows immediately. She didn’t come here for a friendly visit. She came here on a mission to destroy what Charles and Erik have built together. This was the shot fired over the bow. She has something on Erik, and knowing Alice, she’ll have no trouble using it.

“Are you staying long?” Charles asks, his voice even, not even a slight tremor to betray the fact that his insides are clenching. “It’s beautiful here.”

“Pshaw,” Alice scoffs. “It’s the god-damned sticks. I’m driving back to London tonight. Just wanted to see how you were doing in person.”

“You should at least grab a pint before you leave,” Charles says, his voice disingenuous. Alice’s lips turn up in a small sneer. “Erik makes great stew.”

“Long drive,” Alice says.

“Okay,” Charles says. “Well, see you around.”

They part ways, Alice making her way back to her car, Charles walking casually back to the Black Lion, his gait easy, hands swinging by his sides and heart beating as if he’s run a race. Fuck Alice. Fuck the Agency. Fuck everyone. He’s not letting them touch Erik. He walks into the pub, his movements still deceptively slow and calm. Erik is standing behind the bar, watching him. The pub is empty.

“I don’t like your friend,” Erik says, looking at Charles, scanning him, as if he’s looking for an injury Alice might have given him; a cut, a bruise. Charles is unmarked. That’s not how Alice inflicts her pain.

“Neither do I,” Charles says, sliding onto one of the stools. Erik slides a pint in front him and Charles takes a drink, then another, and he quickly drains the glass. He sets it down on the beer mat then looks at Erik whose eyes haven’t left him.

“We need to talk,” Charles says, wiping his mouth with the sleeve of Erik’s sweater. “I need to know about your past.”

Charles hears Erik’s sharp intake of breath at his words. He was wary before but now his whole body goes tense.

“I don’t...I don’t like getting into that,” Erik says quietly, “It was a long time ago.”

For the first time since leaving Alice, Charles feels panic start to well up in his throat. Alice is going to hurt Erik. If Erik doesn’t tell him what she has on him, Charles will have no choice but to leave. It will be the only way to keep Erik safe.

“Do you trust me?” Charles asks carefully. Erik doesn’t answer right away. He just looks at Charles, his brow furrowing and Charles can see the wheels in Erik’s head turning as he thinks about what Charles is asking. They’ve known each other for weeks. Not the months or years it might take to build trust. Charles is asking for something he knows he has no right to request. He reaches a hand across the bar and touches his fingers to Erik’s hand, and Erik jumps and his brow smooths a little. He looks at Charles with so much kindness it almost hurts.

“Yes,” Erik finally says. “I trust you.”

“I need to know about why you came to Cemaes. I can’t tell you why, and I need you to not ask me to tell you. Please.”

Charles wraps his hand around Erik’s and holds onto it as if he’s found anchor in a storm. Erik gives him another long look, and Charles knows how much he’s asking.

“Okay,” Erik says with a sigh, “let me close up. Pour us some scotch. It’s going to be a long night.”

Charles feels a flood of relief with Erik’s words. He lets out an audible sigh and offers Erik a wan smile. “Thank you,” Charles says.

“Don’t thank me yet,” Erik says and his voice sounds strained. “You don’t know what I’ve done.”

They end up on the couch again, the quilt covering both of them, but this time they are not tangled together. Erik is on the opposite end, almost shrinking away from Charles and Charles longs to close the distance between them, to touch Erik and let him know that he’s there with him. Everything about Erik screams that he needs space right now, so Charles stays at the opposite end, grateful that at least they remain connected by the huge, warm quilt that they’ve wrapped up in so often in the past weeks.

“My parents died when I was eleven,” Erik starts. He sounds like he’s in pain as he tells Charles how they were killed in car crash. Their names were Edie and Max. He loved them. They had no other relatives so Erik ended up in foster care.

“No one wants an eleven year old boy,” Erik says, pausing to take a sip of scotch. Charles holds his glass in his hand, untouched, as he listens. “By the time I was fifteen I had run away and was living on the streets in Berlin. I survived however I could. Panhandling, stealing. I slept in shelters, abandoned buildings, on the sidewalk. I did other things…” Erik’s voice trails off for a long moment. He takes a deep breath then blows it out, “Whatever I needed to.”

Charles thinks about the strength that Erik carries with him, a core of steel, and now he sees it was forged from loss and hardship. He thinks about a teen Erik on the street, trying to find shelter from the cold, still reeling from losing his parents. Something inside Charles hurts and he’s surprised to feel the empathy he thought had been beaten and burned out of him long ago start to well up.

“I turned eighteen and started to look for work, but I hadn’t finished school and no one wanted a street kid working for them. In the end dealing was the only way I could make enough money to get by. I ended up working with a very bad group of people. I thought I could handle it. Then one night a deal went wrong. Some guy cheated us. He was African. They got together some people and went to teach the guy a lesson. I went along. It was what you did.”

Erik pauses. He stares into the distance, lost in his memories, then he turns to look at Charles and his eyes are glassy with tears.

"They beat him to death, Charles. They were yelling all these racial slurs, kicking him over and over. There was a woman with him. They dragged her into an alleyway. I could hear her screaming. They raped her. I watched the whole thing.

"I left after that. I needed out, away from there. I mean, I knew violence. I had beat plenty of people, but that night...what they did, the anger. I knew I would be convicted, so I ran. I had a girlfriend. I left her. I hitchhiked all the way here. You know the rest.”

Erik doesn’t say anything else. Silence falls between them and they are left with only the never-ending sound of waves breaking up against the jetty, the occasional cry of a sea bird. Erik looks around, as if he’s not sure where to look, or maybe he’s afraid of what he’ll see if he allows his gaze to rest on Charles. Charles aches because he wants to tell Erik everything, to tell him that he’s not alone in doing horrible, unspeakable things. He wants to close the distance between them, take Erik’s hand in his, look into his eyes and tell him that they are not so different after all. They both have hurt people. They are both running from a part of themselves that is twisted and ugly. He can’t reach out. Instead he picks at the quilt, pulling at a thread that’s sticking out.

“I’ve never told anyone,” Erik finally says, finally turning to look squarely at Charles. He takes in a long, shuddering breath. “I don’t know what happened to that man. I mean, I know he’s dead. How could he not be dead. And the woman. They raped her and I did nothing. I stood by. How...how could I do that?”

Charles suddenly sees flashes of all the people he’s killed over the years, their faces, their words begging him to spare them, their eyes filled with fear. He looks at Erik who is filled with torment over being a witness to one death, and Charles knows with certainty that he’s beyond any forgiveness Erik can offer. He closes his eyes, choking back a the sob that rises in his throat, a lump that feels as if it might suffocate him. He silently curses Alice and what she’s done. Now that Charles knows Erik’s past, it’s only a matter of time before he’ll want to know Charles’. When that time comes, how will he find the words? And how will Erik find forgiveness? Even worse, will Erik be able to find forgiveness?

“Thank you,” Charles says softly as Erik continues to stare at him. “I know that wasn’t easy.”

“None of it is easy,” Erik says tightly. “It took me three years to be able to sleep. That’s why when you kept waking up screaming….” Erik’s voice trails off and Charles feels himself tense up as Erik comes closer to the truths he’s been hiding. Erik looks like he wants to say something. He opens his mouth, then closes it again. “I...I just know what that feels like. I wanted to help you.”

“You have,” Charles says softly. _In more ways than you’ll ever know,_ he adds silently.

“And you still want me?” Erik asks. He is shrinking into the couch, and for such a large, tall man, Charles is surprised how small he looks in this moment. Erik is tall, strong, and he takes care of Charles in obvious ways and not-so-obvious, and here he looks vulnerable and scared.

“Nothing could make me not want you,” Charles says truthfully. Erik is not the one who has sinned the greatest in the room.

Erik lets out a choked sound and before Charles can even respond, he’s closing the distance between them, pulling Charles into his arms, burying his face in the crook of his neck. Charles’ arms go around Erik, his hands soothe up and down his back, skimming across the fabric of his shirt, then he slides a hand up to tangle in Erik’s hair, holding him close. Charles closes his eyes, savors the feel of Erik in his arms, and he silently curses Alice for even considering attempting to destroy this man. It’s clear he carries around immense guilt over what happened. Alice doesn’t make idle threats, so if she’s hinting at Erik’s past, she has enough to make it become a problem. He would have to return to Germany, stand trial, even go to prison. Charles’ breath hitches at the thought of everything Erik would lose, and he promises himself that he’ll do whatever it takes to keep that from happening.

Something shifts between Erik and Charles after that night. Charles feels like Erik’s confession should bring them closer together but there is new space between them that wasn’t present before Charles pushed Erik to reveal his past. Almost everything feels the same, but sometimes Charles sees Erik looking at him, and where he had only seen kindness in his eyes before, now he sometimes see a sliver of uncertainty lurking there. Charles can’t shake off the feeling that they’ve stepped over a line that should have been left well enough alone. He slowly starts to realize that maybe Alice never meant to threaten Erik with deportation. Maybe her intent all along was to sow seeds of doubt that would take root and then grow and flourish between them.

Their days are the same. Erik working at the pub, Charles reading or walking along the cliffs that rise high above the sea. Their nights are the same too, Charles laid out for Erik, open and wanting. Erik taking everything that Charles can give. Yet Charles feels that Erik is a little quicker to pull away than he was before, and sometimes Charles finds that he’s staring at Erik’s back long after he’s gone asleep, his brain refusing to settle. Slowly Charles feels the fear start to build up, layer by layer, and no matter how much he tries to ignore it, it’s always there. Charles can't shake the gnawing feeling that they have begun to fall apart. He knows Alice would ask him if he'd ever expected anything different. He also knows the answer is 'no', except he's not sure if he expected it to hurt this much.

Erik confirms his suspicions one Wednesday afternoon. The pub is closed, as is customary, and after Erik is finished with his cleaning and straightening, he turns to Charles with the unmistakable look of lust in his eyes. Charles swallows because he knows this means they won’t be wandering above the sea or heading to the Coffee Pot to hear the latest village gossip. Erik walks towards him, slow, graceful, and Charles licks his lips. They are barely into the sitting room before Erik is pulling Charles to him, his lips descending into a bruising kiss and he’s pushing Charles against the wall.

“I want you,” Erik mutters, “I’ve been thinking about this all day.”

Part of Charles can accept this urgency as Erik’s pent-up desire, but something about it feels different. There is an edge of desperation, and they don’t make it to the bedroom. Erik sinks to his knees, undoing Charles' trousers in one swift motion. He pulls them down, bringing Charles’ boxers with him, and for a brief moment Charles feels wound up and exposed, leaning heavily against the wall, his hands seeking purchase, his legs trembling. For the first time he actually wants to ask Erik to stop.

He doesn't. His body is responding to Erik's touch, his fingers brushing across a hip bone, hands running down his thighs, the heat of his breathy pants as he nuzzles into Charles' stomach before sinking lower. Charles' cock, which had grown half hard with the way Erik looked at him just moments ago, swells and aches until it’s fully hard and when Erik takes him into his mouth, Charles’ head falls back, hitting against the wall hard enough to hurt. He grunts out Erik’s name, followed by ‘oh my god’.

Erik has been nothing but gentle up to this moment, and it’s the gentleness that takes Charles apart time and again. This is something different. Now there’s an edge that hasn’t been there when they’ve had sex before. Erik is sucking and slurping, working Charles’ cock with an expertise that has Charles’ eyes rolling back in his head as he fights to maintain control. Erik looks up at him through those dark eyelashes, his eyes smoky with desire and smug with the power he has over Charles. Charles’ hips start to twitch, and he wants so badly to thrust into Erik’s hot wet mouth, to get some relief from the ache building in his groin. Erik senses this because the pressure on Charles' hip increases, Erik’s fingers holding him down so he cannot move, telling him who’s in control. Charles whines with frustration and that only causes Erik to slow a bit. They stay like that, Charles leaning against the wall, head tipped back, Erik pacing himself in a manner that makes Charles whimper and start to beg.

“Please, Erik,” Charles whispers, “Please.”

Finally Erik maintains his pace and Charles feels his orgasm start to build, that familiar tightness in his groin, until he knows nothing is going to hold back, and he clenches tightly as he comes, his cock emptying into Erik’s throat, Erik taking every hot spurt. At the last moment, Erik pulls off his cock and the last small spurt of semen lands on his lips. Erik looks up at Charles, and licks Charles’ come off his lips, sending Charles’ brain into overdrive.

“What was that?” Charles asks, still leaning against the wall, his legs feeling like they’re about to give out. He’s panting, and he starts taking in big, deep gulps of air in an effort to slow down his breathing.

Erik looks away and Charles’ heart drops.

“I need to know, Charles,” Erik says, and they both know what he’s talking about. The past. Alice. What brought Charles here. Charles feels panic start to build, its fingers coming around to form a stranglehold on his throat. He takes in more deep gulps of air, this time for an entirely different reason and he sinks to his knees in front of Erik, not caring that he’s still naked from the waist down.

“You don’t need this,” Charles says, his voice threaded with hysteria. He grabs Erik’s hands in his, squeezes them tightly and his eyes meet Erik’s.

“I do,” Erik says. “I can’t keep pretending like this Charles. Not anymore. I know you have secrets. I’ve known since the day you walked in here. You were the most beautiful man I’d ever seen. You were also the most haunted. So much pain. The way you can’t sleep. The way you scream at night. It’s tearing me apart. I need to know.”

“No,” Charles says quietly. “There is no way you will want the real me.” His hands are shaking. Erik might think he wants to know Charles’ past, but he has no idea that what Charles has done, who Charles is, tenfold worse than all of Erik’s transgressions. Erik carries so much shame over some petty drug dealing and one beating death that he only witnessed. How will he live with the fact that Charles has taken life after life? How will he wake up next to a man who is a killer? What about when he learns that Charles killed his ex-girlfriend and that he’s been keeping knowledge of his children from him. None of these things feel surmountable.

Charles looks at Erik, his eyes tracing over the lines around his eyes, his thin lips that have provided endless pleasure, the sharp edge of his jawline. He takes all of this in, wanting to imprint it onto his memory forever, because this may be all he has left.

“Do you love me?” Charles asks. It’s an act of desperation. Erik’s eyes widen at the question and his lips part as if to say something, then they close again. His eyes search Charles’.

“Yes,” Erik says, his voice quiet and sincere. His hand slides up to cradle Charles’ jaw gently and he strokes a finger across Charles’ bottom lip. “God help me, Charles, I love you so much it hurts.”

Charles squeezes his eyes shut, warding off the pain of Erik’s confession.

“Then do this for me,” Charles says softly, hating that he’s resorting to using Erik’s feelings to keep what they have.

“Okay,” Erik says, his breath hitching. Charles feels the tension he’s been holding in his muscles start to slip away. He leans forward and places a quick, chaste kiss on Erik’s lips, and his fingers go to the crease in Erik’s brow, smoothing it out.

“Come to bed,” Charles murmurs, and he realizes his face is wet with tears. How does Erik do this? How does he draw out things inside Charles he thought were long dead? “Let me take care of you.”

When Charles looks back on this moment, he will realize that it’s more than just sex. They are saying goodbye. Right now all he wants is Erik in his arms, Erik’s skin under his fingertips, Erik’s taste on his tongue. Charles stands then extends a hand to Erik, who takes it. Charles pulls the taller man to a stand then, still gripping his hand tightly, leads Erik into the bedroom.

Charles is still vaguely shaky from the aftermath of his orgasm, his cock is soft and heavy between his legs and any sense of urgency he might normally feel around his own arousal isn't present. This means everything Charles does, every nip of his teeth, every deft slide of his fingers, every hot huff of breath against bare skin, can be about Erik.

Erik, who is usually in control, stands by the bed, waiting, watching Charles as he removes the remainder of his clothes piece by piece and leaves them in a pile by the door. Once Charles is stripped bare he walks over to stand in front of Erik.

"What do you want?" Charles asks, searching Erik's eyes.

"All of it, Charles," Erik answers, his voice raw with emotion. "What do you want?"

Charles knows what he wants. Redemption. He wants to be unchained from his past. He wants to be the kind of person who can have a future. He wants Erik.

"This. You. Right now," Charles says. With these words he steps closer to Erik and going up on his tip toes, kisses him.

"Okay," Erik says, then he kisses him back.

Charles undresses Erik. He goes slow, revelling in each expanse of skin he discovers. Erik watches him from under half-lidded eyes. Charles feels greedy, unable to get enough and after he pulls Erik’s shirt off, he leans forward to taste him, starting with just his lips pressed just above Erik’s heart, then flicking at the skin there with his tongue. Erik moans at this small touch and he already sounds far-gone. Charles licks again, tasting salt and sweat, and he’s rewarded with another moan.

Next Charles’ hands go to Erik’s trousers. He unbuttons them and unzips, pulling them down with agile fingers, and instead of just letting them fall, he drags them all the way down Erik’s legs, sinking towards the floor as he goes. The backs of his fingers brush against the back of Erik’s thighs, over his knees and skim down his shins and Erik shudders. Erik steps out of his pants and Charles picks them up and goes to place them on top of his own. It’s strangely domestic, their clothes mingling. Charles returns to stand in front of Erik and he can’t get his head around how he’s come to be here, standing in front of a man who is looking at him with love. No one has ever loved Charles until now. Not even Raven, who he had tried so hard to save and had ultimately failed. Charles' eyes take in Erik’s face, the way he looks at Charles with softness and caring. He moves to his shoulders, strong and broad. Then down to his chest that is rising and falling as Erik breathes in time with Charles, across his flat stomach, narrow hips and finally to Erik’s half hard cock nestled in a thick nest of dark, curly pubic hair. There isn’t one thing about this man that isn’t achingly beautiful.

“You’re mine tonight,” Charles says breathily. Erik doesn’t answer but he nods his agreement, a small movement of his head that says ‘yes’. Charles looks at Erik a bit longer and his tongue comes out to lick along his bottom lip as he thinks through what he might do next. Erik watches Charles' tongue with naked hunger and Charles likes how it feels to affect this man in this manner.

“Where would you be most comfortable?” Charles finally asks. “Bed?”

Erik lets out a strangled sound and Charles glances down to see that Erik’s cock is now fully hard and a bead of precome is forming on the end. “Fuck, Charles. Anywhere. Please.”

“Oh love,’ Charles murmurs, suddenly overtaken with the urge to sink to his knees and take that flushed and leaking cock into his mouth, to taste Erik, sweet and bitter blooming across his tongue. He wants Erik’s hands in his hair, pulling, and to hear those small sounds he makes as he thrusts into Charles’ open, welcoming mouth. He wants all of that, right now, but it’s not quite right. It would be fast, and Charles doesn’t want fast. He wants slow and languid, until he’s sure that every nerve in Erik’s body is tipping towards bliss.

Charles takes Erik’s hand in his then he leads him to the bed. Their bed. The one they’ve fucked in, gone to sleep and woken up in. They climb in, hands still linked and Charles scrambles up towards the head until he’s fully behind Erik, then he settles down, sliding down Erik’s back and spreading his legs wide until Erik is nestled between them. His back is leaning against Charles’ chest, his head is tipped back onto Charles’ shoulder and Charles’ hand comes around to rest on Erik’s chest. He turns his head and kisses the arch of Erik’s neck, resulting in a deep rumble. His hands find Erik’s nipples and he rubs them in tandem, the pads of his fingers sliding back and forth over the pebbled buds. Erik arches into Charles’ touch and he moans again. Charles feels a thrill run through him at all the sounds Erik is making. He rubs Erik’s nipples again, then he presses them, and finally takes them between his thumb and forefinger and pinches. Erik sucks in a breath and bucks up hard. He turns his head and his mouth is groping, seeking, so Charles twists his own neck to meet Erik’s obvious plea and their mouths collide in an awkward, wet kiss, full of tongue. For a moment Charles' hands seem to forget their mission, releasing Erik’s nipples and going to rest lightly on Erik’s pectoral muscles as they kiss again and again, mouths slotting together over and over until Charles’ neck starts to ache from the angle. His right hand starts to travel southward, skimming across ribs, pressing into the hollow of Erik’s belly button then drifting further down to gently stroke the light trail of hair that leads to Erik’s cock. Erik stops kissing Charles at this light touch and Charles can feel his stomach muscles clench lightly.

“Please,” Erik says, his hips undulating a little. Charles bites his lips, wanting more than anything to slide his hand down further, but not quite yet. Erik’s head returns to resting on Charles’ shoulder and Charles takes advantage of the fact that the angle leaves the length of his neck and shoulder exposed. He bites down gently, nipping at the stretched tendon with his teeth then licking afterwards, soothing the skin with his tongue, then nips again. His hand is now rubbing small circles through that trail of hair, fingertips going round and round in strangely soothing circles, and Erik is trembling and whimpering in his arms.

Charles moves his free hand down to grip briefly on Erik's hip then he slides it down Erik's flank then down further and squeezes a great, greedy handful of Erik's ass, pulling enough that he knows he's stretching Erik's asshole just enough to make it feel good. Erik pushes down, seeking more. Charles hand slips further inward until he can lightly brush his fingertips across the pucker of Erik's asshole causing him to jump.

"More, Charles," Erik rasps out.

"Of course," Charles murmurs accommodatingly. He can't quite reach to push one of his fingers inward so he settles for brushing back and forth over Erik's sphincter. From the sounds Erik is making, and the way his body is jerking with each brush of Charles' fingertips, it appears to be acceptable.

Erik's cock is full and thick, wet from precome and jutting upwards from his belly. It jerks a little with every brush of Charles' fingers. Charles glances down at it then glances over at Erik's face. His skin is flushed, there is a thin sheen of sweat on his forehead and his hairline is damp. His bottom lip already looks red and bitten, and as Charles watches him he worries it between his teeth then releases it as he gasps Charles' name. He looks unraveled and wanton, just on the verge of begging for it.

"Charles," Erik gasps out. "Touch me. I need you to touch me. I need to come."

Charles feels a sudden surge of satisfaction at these words. It's power like he's never felt before, to have Erik in his arms, pleading with him for relief. Charles turns his head and his mouth latches onto the side of Erik's exposed neck. Charles sucks hard and Erik moans loudly. There will be a mark in the morning. Charles doesn't care.

"Please!" Erik groans heavily at the pressure of Charles' mouth and Charles knows it's time to give Erik what he's asking for. He brings his hand to his mouth, spits in his palm, then reaches down to wrap it around Erik's large cock. Charles quickly swipes more precome off the tip with his thumb, earning a quick shudder from Erik. He strokes up and down Erik’s shaft, once then a second time, long light strokes to get him entirely covered in spit and precome, then he tightens his grip and starts to work Erik’s cock. He starts just under the head, giving a good twist with his hand, and Erik groans heavily, his cock twitching. He keeps his hand tight and slides down the shaft, then back up again and twists. Erik leans back heavily against Charles’ chest, and he’s emitting a long, deep hum that almost sounds like a purr. His head is still tipped back, his mouth close to Charles ear, and Erik is murmuring with each stroke and twist.

“Mmmm. So good. Charles. I need....”

Erik’s voice trails off and Charles feels the slow burn of arousal in his groin. He’s sure he’s not going to be able to come again, but everything about this, from Erik’s weight on him to the way he’s starting to meet Charles’ hand with his hips, wanting to pump into Charles’ fist, feels incredibly good. Charles wants to kiss Erik so badly he aches with it so he turns his head and searches for Erik, who seems to recognize what Charles wants, because he turns his head and they’re kissing again. Despite Erik’s obvious arousal, the kiss is drawn-out and strangely lazy considering the circumstances. The touch of Erik’s lips on his is so sweet Charles feels like that alone could break him.

Erik’s hips are starting to thrust in earnest now and Charles tightens his grip, moves his hand faster. His finger is still stroking across Erik’s asshole, but it’s not able to keep contact as well because Erik keeps bucking up and into Charles’ hand, so Charles pulls it out from under Erik and spreads his hand across Erik’s left hip, holding him down gently.

“Let me do this,” Charles whispers and Erik whimpers but he sinks back against Charles, a sign of capitulation. “You’ve taken such good care of me. Let me return the favor.”

“Yes, my love,” Erik whispers, and with those words whatever had been threatening to break inside Charles falls apart. He feels a sharp pain in his breast right where his heart is located. Charles starts to pump his hand in earnest, because as much as he wants this to last forever, there’s part of him that desperately needs it to end. It hurts too much.

“Perfect," Erik whispers, "you’re perfect. That’s it. Just...I’m going to...ungh.”

Erik jerks hard into Charles' hand despite the hand on his hip trying to hold him down and Charles feels the pulse of Erik’s cock as he comes, hot, sticky and spurting all over Charles’ hand and Erik’s belly. Charles makes no effort to wipe his hand or clean Erik up. He takes both hands and wraps them around Erik’s chest, pulling him tightly against him, and Erik is still shuddering in the aftermath of his orgasm as Charles rolls both of them on their sides, wrapped around Erik’s back, holding onto him as he rides wave after wave of pleasure. Charles buries his head between Erik’s shoulder blades and he tastes salt on his lips. They are curled together, their positions a mirror image of the first time Erik fucked Charles, their roles are reversed. Charles curls himself around Erik’s large, long frame the best he can and he promises himself that he’ll tell Erik the truth. Erik deserves the truth. But tomorrow. Not now. Not like this.

Circumstances steal away Charles' chance to tell Erik. The next day starts like any other, with Erik waking and rolling over to wake Charles with soft kisses dropped on his cheek, the tip of his nose, his eyebrow. Charles slowly shakes off the shroud of sleep and blearily stares at the man who he shares a bed with. He is sleep warm and tousled, stinking of sex. Charles lets Erik kiss him for a few more minutes, both their lips slow and lazy and completely lacking any intent. When Charles feels that warm rush of desire, feels his cock start to perk up, he breaks away and shoos Erik to the shower.

Once Erik has climbed out of bed, and thanked Charles for a wonderful night, and kissed him on the forehead, and told him he loves him then smiled at the newness of it, and ducked at the pillow directed at him after he confessed that he’ll miss Charles while he showers, Charles lies back in the bed feeling content and comfortable. He’ll tell Erik tonight. He promises himself. But for now, he’ll enjoy today. It’s most likely going to be his last.

Erik returns from the shower, hair wet, holding a towel that he’s using to soak up the last of the moisture on his skin. He looks edible and Charles licks his lips. Erik laughs at him.

“There’s more to this world than sex, Charles. I do need to open the pub at some point. I’ll make breakfast.”

“Porridge?” Charles asks mischievously.

“Of course,” Erik answers with a smile, “your favorite.”

Charles takes a long shower. As disgusting as dried come is, he’s a little sad to see the evidence of their night wash down the drain. He stands under the water, enjoying the warmth on his skin, the way his muscles relax from it. He soaps every part of his body, enjoying the feel of his fingers on his slicked up skin, then he imagines what it would feel like if they were Erik’s fingers. His body thinks it would feel good because his cock tingles and he feels that nudge of desire again. Charles rinses off, making sure there’s no soap in any of the cracks and crevices of his body and he steps out of the shower, water sluicing off him and onto the bath mat under his feet. Charles grabs a towel then pads back into the bedroom and picks out his clothes for the day. He pulls a thin long-sleeved henley t-shirt over his head and pulls on his standard boxers and jeans. Then he walks out into the sitting room, expecting to see Erik standing in the kitchenette, stirring that dreadful porridge he seems determined to make Charles fond of. Charles briefly hopes that the kettle has been started, then he halts.

Erik isn’t in the kitchenette. He’s sitting at the small table they usually eat at and Charles’ laptop is open in front of him.

“Erik,” Charles says, his voice low and full of warning. “What have you done? Why are you looking at my laptop?”

Erik is staring at Charles and his face is pale and drawn.

“Who the fuck are you, Charles? And why are there pictures of my ex-girlfriend on your computer?"

Charles crosses the room. He wonders if Erik will jump up and move away from him, but he stays seated, watching Charles the entire time. Charles pulls out a chair and sits down across from Erik.

“I know you have a gun,” Erik says, “I thought you were police or something. But why Magda? Why is she on your computer? And she’s…” Erik chokes a bit. “She’s dead, Charles.”

Charles takes in a deep breath. This isn’t how he wanted to do this, but he’s not if there was any way he actually wanted to finally tell the truth.

“I know she’s dead,” Charles says quietly.

“Oh my god,” Erik says, his voice soft. “How do you know? How?”

Charles takes in a deep, shaking breath then he plunges forward. He can no longer hold back the truth. Any of it.

“Erik...please,” Charles chokes out. “Let me explain. I love you.” Erik blinks at these words as if he didn’t expect Charles to start this way. Charles continues on. “I’m not the kind of person who is allowed love, but it happened. I want you to remember this. No matter what you find out about me, no matter what I’ve done, never forget that I love you. Because I promise you, after what I’m about to tell you, you’re going to feel like love isn’t enough.”

“Isn’t that going to be my decision, Charles?” Erik asks softly, “I just need you to tell me what’s going on. To understand. Then I can decide if love will be enough.”

Charles’ eyes gloss over with tears. “It won’t be, Erik,” Charles whispers. “It won’t…”

Charles takes a deep shaking breath. He knows what he needs to say but not quite how to put it and the words feel stuck. Erik is watching him, the laptop open between them, waiting. Charles blows the air out and takes in another. Finally, he speaks, his voice sounding raw.

“I’m a government assassin,” Charles says quickly. “I kill people for a living. The pictures of Magda are on my laptop because she was one of my targets. I killed her. She’s why I came to find you. I found out your connection to her because of her children - your children. The twins she never told you she was pregnant with. The ones I spared.”

“Twins?” Erik gasps. “I have children?”

“Yes. Wanda and Pietro. They’re ten. She must have been pregnant when you left Berlin. You’re in the file as the biological parent. That’s how I found you.”

Erik is pale.

“I was never even going to talk to you,” Charles says, as if that makes any of this better. “I...I just wanted to see you. To see that they might have someone in this world.”

“So all of this...us...was a lie?” Erik asks, his mouth tight.

“No,” Charles gasps. “None of it was a lie. You...oh god, you saved me Erik. I was lost and then I came here and found you, and I found myself in the process.”

“But you, Charles. You’re a lie. You knew who I was before we met. You have a file with my name in it.” Erik stops speaking for a moment, his eyes growing wide, as if he’s just now putting everything together. “You kill people for a living.”

“Yes,” Charles says. There’s really nothing more or less to say.

“How many?” Erik asks.

“Does it matter?” Charles counters. He knew Erik would want to know and knowing won’t make any of this better.

“How many, Charles?” Erik asks again.

“I don’t know. I’ve lost count over time. Less than a hundred?”

Erik flinches.

“And Alice. I’m sure she’s part of this. She has to be.”

“She’s my handler. She wants me to come back in. They have an assignment.”

Erik winces at the word assignment. A job to kill someone. Charles wants to ask him if his own transgressions seem as big now.

“Are you going back?”

Charles looks at Erik for a long moment and he has a feeling of certainty like he’s never had before. It’s not around returning to the Agency but around the knowledge that he will not return, which means the only way is forward, and he has no idea how to do that now.

“No,” Charles says calmly. “I’m never going back. I’m not that person anymore.” He has been changed. Erik has made his way into his heart and changed him forever. He cannot go back to his old life.

“Kurt, the abuse. Was that a lie?”

“No,” Charles says. “I’ve never directly lied to you. Just didn’t tell you everything. Kurt turned me into the perfect killing machine. He stole my ability to feel. He made it so I could take a life and not care.”

“Do you still not care about taking a life?” Erik asks.

“No,” Charles says softly. “Like I said, I’m not that person anymore.”

Erik is quiet for a long time. Charles doesn’t move from his chair. He will not until Erik tells him.

“Your sister?”

“She thinks I’m dead,” Charles says quietly, and regret washes over him. “It’s better that way.”

Erik says nothing. He just sits with the open laptop between them, looking at Charles. His face is a mask of pain. After a long time of neither of them saying anything, Erik opens his mouth to speak.

“I think you need to leave,” Erik finally says, his tone quiet and still. Charles is surprised at the pain those words bring. He’s been expecting them. They still hurt.

“Okay,” Charles says, standing up. He feels something welling up in his throat. Sadness, anger, he’s not sure. “Was I right that love isn’t enough?”

Erik looks at him. His eyes are pale blue and watery and he looks ten years older. He looks as broken as Charles feels, and the only thing Charles wants is to reach out to him, to fall onto his knees, to beg him to not do this. Instead he takes the keys to his car off the hook where they’d found a home over the last six weeks.

“Yes, you were right,” Erik says, answering Charles’ question. “I love you, Charles. I really do. I almost hate myself for the fact that I know all this and I still love you. But yes, it’s not enough. Not even close.”

“I’m sorry,” Charles says softly. “I’m sorry I talked to you. I’m sorry I let you believe I was someone I’m not. I’m sorry for who I am and what I’ve done, and that all of that has led to this. I'm sorry for all of it. But I'm not sorry about you, being with you. Loving you.”

Charles walks over to his bag, the one that lies mostly empty since his clothes have found new places, in the baskets and drawers of Erik’s home. There is one thing left in there that he needs. He picks it up, feeling its weight in his hands. His gun.

“It’s probably best if I leave straightaway. I’ll find a place to stay tonight,” Charles says, tucking the gun into his waistband. “I’ll come back for my stuff in a couple days, then back to London. I’m sure Alice will be happy to see me.”

It’s the first time Charles has lied to Erik. He knows he’s not coming back. He’s not going to London. He won’t see Alice. There is only one way this can end now. It will be the best for everyone.

“Okay,” Erik says, “I’ll pack everything up and have it ready for you.”

“Okay,” Charles answers. He grabs his coat and shrugs it on, then he walks towards the door that leads to the pub, turning his back to Erik.

“Wait!” Erik says, his voice sharp. Charles stills for a moment. Maybe Erik is going to ask him to stay. Maybe he’ll tell him it doesn’t matter about his past, that loving him is enough. Charles turns, trying to ignore that small surge of hope in his breast. Erik is standing now, and he’s holding something. Charles glances down at it. It’s the blue fisherman’s sweater. The one that smells like Erik.

“In case you get cold,” Erik says quietly. Charles feels his eyes start to grow wet. He's not going to do this. Not now.

“Thank you,” Charles says, taking the sweater. He manages not to bring it up to his face and bury his nose in it. He tucks the sweater under his arm and walks away.

Charles holds back the tears until he reaches the car. He drives away from Cemaes and away from Erik, his face wet and his soul filled with regret.

Charles has no idea where he's heading. He won't go back to London. He knows that for sure. He guides the car back towards Holyhead, winding his way on the narrow roads, his hands gripping the steering wheel, knuckles white. The sun is already low in the sky and before he makes it to the town, it slips entirely under the horizon, and the different shades of gray plunge into pitch black. At some point Charles decides to pull over, parking his car on the side of the road. He is so weary that it aches. He crawls into the back seat, curls up and let's his pain wash over him.

He's not sure he sleeps, perhaps in fits and starts. Every time he closes his eyes Erik is there. It's both a blessing and a curse. A blessing to see Erik again, even if it's just in his dreams. To hear his voice, to feel his touch. A curse because all it ultimately does is bring the pain crashing in again, wave after wave, until Charles can barely stand it. By the time the sun rises, Charles knows what he must do. He cannot live like this, stuck in between everyone and everything. He cannot return to London. Cannot return to Alice and the Agency. Cannot return to Erik.

Holyhead is not much further. Charles heads towards the dilapidated section of the charming Welsh town. It's the part that has felt the decline of the fishing industry the most. Row after row of abandoned warehouses stand as testaments to a past when the industry was booming. Now they wait for better days, doors locked, windows smeared with dirt. He parks his car and it doesn't take long for Charles to break into one of them. It’s a good place to not be found, and Charles doesn’t want to be found. He pats his back, feeling the gun he’s tucked into his waistband, then shuts the worn down door behind him.

The warehouse is large and echoing, and from one corner Charles can hear the flutter and coos of pigeons as he disturbs their roost. There are bits of equipment around the perimeter, every one covered in a thick layer of dust, giving them all the same gray shade as the stained concrete walls. The large, echoing room has a faint odor, one that smells familiar to Charles. It’s the sea, salt, the long-gone fish that were once sorted, gutted and packed to be sent all over the world. People used to make their living working here. Honest, good waged jobs that supported their families. Nothing like what Charles has done with his life. They could go home at night, be with the ones they love. They could sleep.

In the middle of the warehouse are some abandoned chairs sitting haphazardly, one of them tipped to the floor. Charles walks over to them and not bothering to wipe the dust, he sits down. He reaches behind him and pulls out his gun, staring at it. Who will find him? A passer by? No one, until they finally tear down these remnants of past industry and find his skeleton. No one? Will this be his grave for all eternity?

The gun is heavy in his hand. He likes the weight. It’s of the most familiar things in his life. Unlike Erik. Erik is one of the most unfamiliar, always a surprise. That’s the best way to describe him. A surprise, a momentary glimpse into happiness that Charles has been allowed for some reason. Is it better this way? Is it better that he has loved so much that it has destroyed everything he knew to be true?

Yes. There is nothing about Erik that Charles can regret. Even if this is where he ends up because of everything that Erik changed for him.

Erik. Charles closes his eyes and he is there. He can see his face. His blue eyes that change color like the sea, the wrinkles around the edges, the way his brow furrows slightly, his smile, so wide and joyful and only for Charles. He pictures the way his lashes lay on his cheek, eyes closed in sleep or in bliss. His face, slack with ecstasy, groaning Charles' name. Erik behind the bar at the Black Lion, chatting with a fisherman come in for a pint, glancing over at Charles with that look in his eyes that is only for him.

God, he hurts. Every part of him aches for Erik. It's pain like he's never known. Still, it's better than the numbness he's lived with for most of his life. At least he had something real for a little while. Charles cannot bring himself to regret loving Erik. There was a time Charles thought nothing could save him but now he has found redemption through loving this man.

Charles takes in a deep breath. This is it. He has come to the end.

The door squeaks open. Heels click across the floor.

"Fuck you, Alice," Charles says, not even looking up. He hears her laugh, a smug chuckle.

"Oh Charles," Alice says with mock sympathy, "did you think you could get out this easily?"

Charles closes his eyes tightly. Of course. Nothing is ever as simple as it seems. Especially with Alice around.

\--

"So what are you going to do, Charles?"

"You did this," Charles hisses at Alice. "You drove the wedge between us, made him start to doubt, until he went looking for answers.”

"Oh, Charles," Alice sighs, "no responsibility for what you've done? Thinking you can have him? People like us don't get people like him. You need to come back with me. Or you need to end this once and for all. You’re already dead as far as the world’s concerned. Fucking finish the job.”

Charles will not go back to the Agency. He cannot go back to Erik. The only options is to, as Alice has said, fucking finish the job.

“My blood is on your hands,” Charles says quietly.

“Oh love,” Alice chuckles, “your blood is on more than my hands. It’s on everyone who created someone as magnificently amoral as you and it’s on Erik’s for destroying that. But as for me, it’s not like I haven’t had blood on my hands before. I’ll survive. Yours will just be another stain and eventually I’ll forget where I even got it.”

Charles lifts the gun, holding it steady in his hands. He takes the barrel and rests it just under his chin. His eyes never leave Alice’s face and he sees a slow smile spread as she realizes his choice.

“Goodbye Charles,” Alice says, leaning back a little, crossing her arms over her chest and watching him. Charles feels his finger pull slightly against the trigger, and this is it. This is how it all ends. Then…

“No!”

Both Alice and Charles look towards the voice that is ringing in the silence of the warehouse.

_Erik._

“Erik?” Charles says and the hand holding his gun starts to tremble. He stares past Alice to see Erik standing behind her, his face pale, hands clenched at his sides as if he’s going into battle.

“Please. Charles!” Erik shouts and he starts striding towards them, his long legs taking huge steps across the concrete floor, coming closer and closer.

“Son of a bitch,” Alice hisses as she watches Erik through narrowed eyes.

“Don’t!” Erik pleads, coming to stop just feet away from Charles, ignoring Alice. His eyes are for Charles and Charles only. They lock, blue staring at blue, frozen together. “I can’t…” Erik says, his words fading away as he stares at Charles.

“Erik?” Charles says again. He’d think he’s having a delusion except it’s obvious that Alice can see Erik too, and she’s almost sputtering with rage.

“I can’t lose you,” Erik manages to get out, his chest heaving with exertion. “Please, Charles. I can’t lose you.”

Charles lowers the gun. He rests it on his thigh as he stares at Erik.

“You don’t want me,” Charles says, his heart threatening to pound out of his chest. He hates the truth in his words. Nobody wants him. Not when they find out who he is. “You can’t love me. No one can love a monster.”

Erik looks at Charles, and his eyes are wild, his face pale. His hands ball into fists as he reacts to Charles’ words.

_No one can love a monster_

“I can’t help but love you,” Erik says, and the words sound like they’re ripped from somewhere deep inside. “And if you are a monster, you never chose it. You were a child, Charles. The people around you made the choices for you. If anyone here is a monster, it’s her.”

Erik gestures to Alice who sneers at him.

“You have to stop preventing the people who love you from loving you, Charles,” Erik continues. “You took the choice away from Raven. Don’t take the choice away from me. If you pull that trigger, you do that.”

“Erik!” Charles gasps, every emotion inside him colliding, and he feels dizzy. “I…”

“Please,” Alice interrupts, her voice almost bored, “Enough.” She turns to look at Charles. “Don’t delude yourself Charles. You might think what Erik says is true, but it’s not. People like you and me, we don’t love. We’re not capable. You might think you love him, but you don’t. You can’t.”

“No,” Charles gasps, looking at Alice.

“There’s only one choice here,” Alice says, standing up slowly, “and it’s not what this arsehole is offering. You come with me. Or you die.”

Alice’s hand moves and Charles glances down and realizes Alice is holding a gun. So that’s how this is going to go.

“Fuck you, Alice,” Charles says, suddenly resentful that she thinks she can dictate what happens here. Erik is here. Erik has come for him. That has to count for something.

"You still have a choice, Charles," Alice purrs, her lip twitching in that half smile that tells Charles she's pleased with herself. "You can choose to live."

Charles thinks about what Alice is offering. More death. More sleepless nights. No home. No love. To remain nothing more than the person Kurt Marko created. But Erik is right. That is not who he is anymore. Unlike Alice, he has known love. Love so deep it has torn him down and rebuilt him. Charles glances at Erik who is watching the exchange, his face a mask of horror as he witnesses the exchange between Charles and Alice. Their eyes lock and Charles sees that Erik's are shining with tears.

"I'm sorry, my love," Charles says to him. "Knowing you - loving you - it changed me. I cannot go back."

"Charles, no!" Erik gasps, cutting him off.

"Yes," Charles answers. He turns to look at Alice. "I will not go back,"

Charles sees a brief flicker of emotion in Alice's eyes, and if he didn't know his handler so well he might call it pain. He shuts his eyes, hears Erik yell his name, then there is the crack of a gun and Charles waits for the pain.

_Waits._

There is nothing.

He hears his name again.

_Waits._

No pain.

"Charles!"

Hands are grabbing him, gripping his biceps.

"Oh my god, Charles!"

Charles opens his eyes. Erik is there, holding him, his face streaked with tears. Charles is. He's...

"Alive," Charles manages to gasp. "I'm alive."

Erik is kissing him, pressing his lips to his cheek, his forehead.

"Never leave me. Never again," Erik whispers between kisses. "Never."

Everything Charles has been holding back comes rushing in, a tidal wave of emotion that has him reeling. His hands go to clutch at Erik's shirt. He's alive. Erik is here. Alice….

_Alice._

She’s on the ground, her legs splayed at an awkward angle, her red hair spread out over the concrete. Her eyes are staring upwards, blank, and from under her head is a slowly spreading pool of blood, dark and red, like any other pool of blood Charles has ever watched. She’s dead and the whole moment is strangely meaningless.

“Erik!” Charles gasps, growing cold. “Oh my god. You killed her.”

“She was going to kill you,” Erik says, almost to himself. His hands are running up and down Charles’ arms, as if convincing himself that Charles is real. “I couldn’t let her kill you.”

Charles should try to think about all the variables. They are standing in an abandoned warehouse, his handler dead on the floor. But Erik is touching him, kissing him, and he’s telling him he can never leave. Charles feels entirely tilted off his axis. His hands are still fisted in Erik’s shirt.

“You came for me,” Charles manages to get out, his voice strangled.

“Alice came to the pub looking for you. I knew you were in trouble. I followed her.” Erik brings a hand up and cups Charles' face with his palm. Charles closes his eyes and leans into the touch. “I didn’t know what I was going to do. Then when I saw you with the gun, saw you put it to your chin…”

Erik’s voice trails off. He stares down at Charles and the absurdity of the moment almost makes Charles want to laugh. They're in the middle of an abandoned warehouse, a dead body on the floor, and all he can do is think that he will never love someone like he loves Erik.

 

“I know I told you to leave,” Erik says softly, “and I didn’t know if I wanted you to come back when I followed Alice. I just knew that I couldn’t stand the thought of that woman hurting you. Then when I saw you, I knew…”

“Knew?” Charles says blankly, lost in the way Erik is looking at him.

“I can’t stand to be without you. I knew when I saw you that I came to bring you home.”

“Home?” Charles echoes. “I don’t have a home.” Charles has never had a home. Not since his father died and his world became dark, dangerous and full of pain.

“Our home,” Erik says softly. “I want you to come home.”

“You want me?” Charles whispers in disbelief.

“I need you,” Erik says. “I love you. I can’t live without you.”

“My past? Magda?” Charles asks. Can Erik live with it? Can he accept that Charles was a monster and that will always be part of who he is?

Erik lets out a sigh and glances over towards Alice’s body.

“Magda was a long time ago for me, and we both have blood on our hands,” Erik says softly. “I don’t want your past, Charles. Or mine for that matter. I want you right now. Come home.”

“Yes,” Charles whispers. Erik’s lips descend and meet his, and they kiss, mouths moving slowly against each other, both of them holding onto each other for dear life. They break apart and Erik takes hold of Charles' hand. They walk towards the exit of the warehouse, their hands clasped together, leaving behind Alice’s body and everything else about Charles’ life with the Agency. Charles glances up at Erik and he finally feels so much peace that he knows it’s going to be okay. The unredeemable has been redeemed. He has finally found himself.

“Erik, my love,” Charles says, smiling and he feels tears well up in his eyes, “I’m ready to go home.”

**~fin~**


End file.
